Table 1 Focus group and email suggestions for intervention content

• The use of prompts e.g. posters to encourage regular breaks placed by clocks in the office, posters to encourage drinking more water, and recommending the installation of free software onto computers to provide staff with an alternative way to remember to take breaks.

• Carrying out walking and/or standing meetings.

• Ensure management support in the form of encouraging emails and also “leading by example” e.g. by taking part in or initiating walking or standing meetings.

• Provide an educational element to highlight the links between prolonged sitting and poor health – ideally with the use of You Tube™ videos.

• Linking with a University of Sheffield wellness programme, which offers lunchtime exercise classes.

• Developing a brand for the intervention to ensure that it is easily recognisable throughout ScHARR. The principal researcher determined the intervention brand, “Sit Less ScHARR!”, based on slogans from previous research e.g. "Stand-Up Victoria" [52]; "Stand-Up Australia" [28]; and "Stand-Up, Sit Less, Move More" [43].

• The focus group participants volunteered to be “workplace champions” to encourage and support colleagues with the various elements of the intervention.

• Utilising social media e.g. Twitter™ to promote the intervention.

• Identifying low-cost environmental-level components was difficult. The only pragmatic suggestions were encouraging different uses of toilets/meeting rooms/printers /working spaces which were further away from their base.