Can Your Workforce Touch Their Toes? Why it matters. (WCBS 2026)

Can Your Workforce Touch Their Toes? Here's Why That Question Matters More Than
You Think

We're opening with a simple experiment: reach for your toes and notice where you stop. It sounds like an odd way to start a business talk, but that small physical test reveals something most HR reports never show you, how much accumulated strain your people are carrying, and how that strain quietly affects energy, focus, and performance long before it shows up as a sick day.
In this session, Wellness Compass Team unpacks the hidden connection between physical stiffness, the well-known 3pm energy slump, and workplace productivity. We'll look at why prolonged sitting affects far more than posture, why the instinctive fixes for afternoon fatigue often make things worse, and why presenteeism, being at your desk but running well below capacity, may be costing your business more than absence ever does.
This isn't a talk about wellness as a nice-to-have. It's a practical look at two everyday signals, movement and energy, that are more connected, and more measurable, than most leaders realise.
Expect straightforward science, no jargon, and a few things you can start noticing in your own team from tomorrow morning. Purely educational, with no sales pitch, just a fresh way to think about a question every business should be asking.

Speakers

Paula Ferris, The Wellness Compass Team
Paula Ferris, Director of Positive EnerJe Health & Fitness and co-founder of Wellness Compass Team, brings over 30 years' experience in health, fitness and wellbeing. Her expertise spans cardiac rehabilitation, sports recovery and youth fitness, alongside specialist support for women's health and midlife wellbeing. Known for her warm, person-centred coaching style, she is a passionate advocate for helping people move well, build strength and grow confidence at every life stage.
Find them at Stand 51.

Paula Fenegan, The Wellness Compass Team
Find them at Stand 51.

In the Seminar Hall 1 (bottom left of the floor plan).