Your Fidgety Employee Isn't Broken. The Desk Is.

There's always one. The person on your team who can't sit still. They pace during phone calls. They stand up at their desk. They tap their foot during meetings and get up for water three times in an hour. You've probably watched them and wondered if something is wrong.

Nothing is wrong. The desk is.

For more than a century, summer camps have been running the world's quietest experiment in human performance. They didn't set out to study movement science. They just knew, intuitively, that children couldn't learn, connect, or grow if they were sitting still all day. So they built constant physical activity into every hour. Swim tests in the morning. Gaga pit at midday. Sports, ropes courses, hikes, relay races, free swim, and evening games. Movement wasn't the break from the real work. Movement was the work.

It turns out they were right for reasons they probably never fully understood.

When you move your body, you trigger the release of endorphins. Most people have heard of endorphins in the context of a "runner's high," but the threshold for releasing them is much lower than a long run. Laughter does it. Physical play does it. Even a brisk walk around the block does it. Endorphins don't just make you feel better. They reduce stress hormones, sharpen focus, increase creativity, and make you more receptive to other people. They are, in a very literal sense, the chemistry of being your best self.

When your team sits still for eight hours, they are working against their own biology.

I have a vivid memory from a summer years ago of watching a group of teenagers play gaga pit. For those unfamiliar, gaga is a fast-moving, chaotic variation of dodgeball played in an enclosed octagonal pit. The game moves quickly. There is no downside to throwing yourself around and no real way to look cool doing it. Within about three minutes, a group of teens who had been posturing around each other all morning were doubled over laughing, completely unselfconscious, working together and against each other in equal measure.

By the time they walked to lunch, they were different. Looser. More open. Kinder to each other at the table than they had been all week.

That wasn't an accident, and it wasn't magic. It was endorphins doing what endorphins do.

Most offices don't have a gaga pit. That's fine. But the gap between what camp does and what most workplaces do is worth examining honestly.

A typical office meeting puts people in chairs for an hour and asks them to generate ideas, solve problems, and engage meaningfully with each other. A typical camp morning builds in physical activity before asking people to collaborate on anything. One environment treats movement as a luxury or a distraction. The other treats it as a prerequisite.

The research supports the camp model. A 2018 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that even a single 30-minute session of moderate aerobic exercise improves memory, attention, and executive function for several hours afterward. Other research has consistently shown that physical activity during the workday reduces employee stress and improves both mood and output.

Your fidgety employee isn't failing to adapt to your culture. Their nervous system is trying to tell you something about what your culture needs.

You don't need to redesign your office or hire a personal trainer for your staff. One thing you could try is simply making movement part of how your team works rather than something that happens despite it. Start a meeting with a short walk. Do a standing check-in instead of a seated one. Give people explicit permission to pace, stand, or stretch during long work blocks without treating it as a sign of disengagement.

The goal isn't to turn your workplace into summer camp. The goal is to stop working against the basic biology of the people you lead.

The fidgety ones already know something you're still learning. They're not broken. They're just honest about what it takes to actually think.

About the Author

Matt Kaufman has spent 40 years in summer camp as a camper, counselor, and director, studying what makes people belong, grow, and thrive. He writes about intentional community, leadership, and the intersection of technology and human connection.

Connect with Matt:

• Instagram: @mattlovescamp

• LinkedIn: Matt Kaufman

• Website: ilove.camp

Books by Matt Kaufman:

• The Campfire Effect: How to Engineer Belonging in a Disconnected World

• The Summer Camp MBA: 50 Leadership Lessons from Camp to Career