Purpose: The objective of this master’s thesis was to examine employees' perception on health am-bassadors and how the ambassadors attempted to motivate employees to a healthier standard in a workplace environment.
Methods: A qualitative case design with an inductive approach was applied through digital video-based semi-structured interviews to gain an empirical insight. Data was analyzed through thematic analysis.
Results: 108 codes were identified and subsequently organized into eight themes. Two themes were deducted so the final number of themes was six, four of which related to the purpose of the master’s thesis and two to other relevant findings regarding the case: (1) Description of health ambassadors, (2) The company's health initiatives, (3) Structural barriers to an active workplace, (4) Discontent with the current condition, (5) Values and priorities in the workplace, (6) External influences.
Conclusion: As a strategy to increase motivation health ambassadors have; included employees in facilitating workouts (resistance band exercises), altered exercises to be pain relieving through spe-cific employee requests and persisted on maintaining joint participation regarding the entire staff. The employees were positive about the physical benefits of the workout and experienced that joint exercising had a positive effect on workplace relations. However, due to a high workload the employ-ees experienced rejection by the health ambassadors, when requesting physical activity. To increase the overall health focus and success of the health ambassadors, management is advocated to explic-itly prioritize health-related initiatives with resources and verbal encouragement.