Workplace Health Management (WHM) There are four key components of workplace health management:
Occupational Health and Safety
Workplace Health Promotion
Social and lifestyle determinants of health
Environmental Health Management
In the past, the policy was frequently driven solely by compliance with legislation. In the new approach to workplace health management, policy development is driven by legislative requirements and by health targets set voluntarily by the working community within each industry. To be effective, Workplace Health Management needs to be based on knowledge, experience, and practice accumulated in three disciplines: occupational health, workplace health promotion, and environmental health. It is important to see WHM as a process for continuous improvement and health gain within the company and as a framework for involvement between various agencies in the community. It offers a platform for cooperation between the local authorities and business leaders on community development by improving public and environmental health.
The Healthy Workplace setting – a cornerstone of the Community Action Plan.
The Luxembourg Declaration of the European Union Network for Workplace Health Promotion defined WHP as the combined effort of employers, employees, and society to improve the health and well-being of people at work.
This can be achieved through a combination of:
Improving the work organization and the working environment
Promoting active participation of employees in health activities
Encouraging personal development
Workplace health promotion is seen in the EU network Luxembourg Declaration as a modern corporate strategy that aims to prevent ill-health at work and enhance health-promoting potential and well-being in the workforce. Documented benefits for workplace programs include decreased absenteeism, reduced cardiovascular risk, reduced health care claims, decreased staff turnover, decreased musculoskeletal injuries, increased productivity, increased organizational effectiveness, and the potential of a return on investment (Mossinik, Licher1998 – Oxenburgh 1991).
However, many of these improvements require the sustained involvement of employees, employers, and society in the activities required to make a difference. This is achieved through the empowerment of employees, enabling them to make decisions about their own health. Occupational Health Advisors (OHA) are well placed to carry out needs assessment for health promotion initiatives with the working populations they serve, to prioritize these initiatives alongside other occupational health and safety initiatives which may be underway, and to coordinate the activities at the enterprise level to ensure that initiatives which are planned are delivered. In the past, occupational health services have been involved in assessing fitness to work and assessing levels of disability for insurance purposes for many years.
Some innovative occupational health services have developed maintaining working ability in the otherwise healthy working population. In some cases, these efforts have been developed in response to the growing challenge caused by the aging workforce and the ever-increasing cost of social security. OHA’s have often been at the forefront of these developments.
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There is a need further to develop the focus of all occupational health services to include efforts to maintain workability and prevent non-occupational workplace preventable conditions by interventions at the workplace. This will require some occupational health services to become more proactive in workplace health promotion without reducing the attention paid to preventing occupational accidents and diseases. OHA’s, with their close contact with employees, sometimes over many years, are in a good position to plan, deliver and evaluate health promotion and maintenance of work ability interventions at the workplace.
Health promotion at work has grown in importance over the last decade as employers and employees recognize the respective benefits. Working people spend about half of their non-sleeping day at work, and this provides an ideal opportunity for employees to share and receive various health messages and for employers to create healthy working environments. The scope of health promotion depends upon the needs of each group.
Some of the most common health promotion activities are smoking-reducing activities, healthy nutrition or physical exercise programs, prevention, and abatement of drug and alcohol abuse.
However, health promotion may also be directed towards other social, cultural, and environmental health determinants if the people within the company consider that these factors are important for improving their health, well-being, and quality of life. In this case, factors such as improving work organization, motivation, reducing stress and burnout, introducing flexible working hours, personal development plans, and career enhancement may also help contribute to the working community’s overall health and well-being.
The Healthy Community setting And occupational health, and workplace health promotion are also other important aspect to Workplace Health Management. It is related to the impact that each company may have on the surrounding ambient environment. Through pollutants or products or services provided to others, its impact on distant environments. For example, remember how far the effects of the Chernobyl Nuclear accident in 1986 affected whole neighboring countries.
Although the environmental health impact of companies is controlled by different legislation to that which applies to Health and Safety at work, there is a strong relationship between safeguarding the working environment, improving work organization and working culture within the company, and its approach to environmental health management.
Many leading companies already combine occupational health and safety with environmental health management to optimally use the company’s available human resources and avoid duplication of effort. Occupational health nurses can contribute to environmental health management, particularly in those companies that do not employ environmental health specialists.
