A FITNESS initiative to help employees easily find sport partners has been launched in York.

SportBuddie, which has been in development for the past 18 months, aims to close the "fitness gap" between the amount of exercise needed to stay healthy and the amount of people actually do.

The internet-based company aims to bring work colleagues from different companies and organisations together to be part of a sports and leisure community, irrespective of age, ability level, sporting interests or business location.

City of York Council has joined the service, and Stephen Forrest, HR business development manager with the council, said having an active and engaged workforce was extremely important.

"SportBuddie provides us with a new and exciting approach to encourage greater levels of physical activity in the workplace," he said.

"We look forward to joining other key employers in the local area to get York and its surrounding areas more active."

Andrew Wilding, managing director of SportBuddie, said: "SportBuddie provides a very cost-effective way to deliver a tangible benefit to every single employee. Joining the service will not only impact on the performance of their business. It will also contribute to the health of the wider community".

Andrew said that in the UK there was a clear "fitness gap" between the amount of exercise people needed to stay healthy and the amount they were actually doing, and leading employers had a responsibility to encourage activity in the workplace.

"Most organisations recognise that an effective employee health and wellbeing strategy can have a significant impact on performance and actively invest in initiatives which are either information-led, such as diet tips, third party-led, like a health club, or in-house-led, such as exercise classes, walking to work or organised events," he said.

"Having an active workforce with a high level of camaraderie and morale is a key driver to a high performance culture and SportBuddie.com provides a unique solution to help contribute to this. In doing so it will impact on the overall health and profitability of an organisation."

For further information on SportBuddie, phone Andrew Wilding on 0115 969 8205.