Table 3 Theme of ‘perceived benefits of participation’ and verbatim examples

Perceived benefits of participation

1. Concern with company image: “We were one of the ones to be chosen, that’s a huge cannon feather in our cap you know we’re thrilled about that and you know again to promote the fact that it’s not everybody that was selected….we were chosen as a company for a particular reason and we’re honoured to be included” (HR manager, Environmental site—follow-up stage).

2. Managers’ personal interest: “I would have been the person who pushed it to say ‘let’s go and do this, it’s an opportunity, yeah’…having dieticians on site, having access to all this expertise you know, and it is a great pile of health promotion going on in the background” (Occupational health, Control site—follow up stage).

3.Fostering employee loyalty: “If you’re trying to convince employees that you’re interested and trying to engage with them, show them that you care about their health and well-being so that’s a good engagement tool” (Occupational health, nutrition education site—baseline stage).

“If we can keep our employees healthy, they’ll be happier, they’ll produce better work, they’ll hit their efficiencies a lot better and they’re more likely to be in here” (HR, nutrition education site—follow-up stage).

4. Health concerns among employees: “We don’t have the luxury in this modern day and age of getting to 54, in days of old you’d get to this age and you pull back a little, there’s young and progressive people coming up underneath you and they take the pressure and that, that doesn’t happen today. They are going to work people until they’re 65” (Employee, nutrition education site—follow-up stage).