Employee health promotion is evolving.
Early efforts to develop healthful workplaces focused on safety at the worksite and injury avoidance for employees.
More recently, programs are designed to assist employees to select healthier behaviours like being more physically active or quitting smoking.
Campaigns to raise awareness, educational sessions to raise knowledge, opportunities to learn new skills, and changes to policies to make it easier for staff members to make healthful options are often included.
This approach is taken because the workplace is a good way to reach individuals , since most adult American Citizens spend a large part of their day at work.
While safety and lifestyle programs are two aspects that contribute to the health of employees, company health promotion is more effective when a third factor is brought into the equation-the environment at work.
How the workplace affects health.
Increasingly, it’s recognized that the workplace itself has a powerful affect on people ’s health. When people are satisfied with their job, they are more productive and tend to be healthier. When employees feel that the environment at work is negative, they feel stressed.
Stress has a big impact on staff member mental and physical health, and in turn, on productivity.
Consultant Graham Lowe has identified five components of workplace culture that directly affect employees’ health and the health of the organization overall-credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie.
The underlying idea is that businesses must genuinely care about the well-being of their employees.
Corporations today who want to attract and keep good employees have leaders who understand the connection between staff member satisfaction and staff member health and believe that company health promotion is a corporation strategy.
Their management practices include making reasonable demands on time and energy, involving staff members in decision making, rewarding work well done, openly communicating, and providing support to balance work and home life.
Employers know that workers are looking for jobs that pay well, have good benefits, are fascinating, and include excellent health and safety programs. So in today’s competitive hiring market, it’s become more important than ever for companies to enhance job satisfaction and ensure that workers enjoy being on the job.
Employee health promotion benefits both companys and workers.
How does company health promotion benefit the corporation?
A health promotion program can help a company to –
• Attract and keep employees;
• reduce the costs of disability, drugs, and absenteeism;
• reduce the effects of a stressful workplace;
• reduce health care costs or keep them contained; and
• improve morale by creating a happy, supportive environment.
How does corporate health promotion benefit employees?
Staff Members of corporations that have a health promotion program are likely to have –
• increased awareness and knowledge of ways to improve their health;
• a better (less stressful) workplace;
• increased protection from injury;
• improved health and well-being;
• higher morale and greater job satisfaction;
• increased productivity and effectiveness at work;
• decreased personal health care costs; and
• a more relaxed/flexible approach to health issues.
Both employers and workers have a responsibility for creating a healthful workplace. Workers are expected to arrive at work in good health, and the employer is expected to provide an environment that authorizes workers to maintain good health, enjoy their work, and contribute to the organization’s success.
Company health promotion is more than a “lunch and learn” program. It’s about developing a “people first” approach to doing corporation.
It’s about taking care of employees, establishing a positive work environment, and compensating attention to the factors that keep employees healthy and happy at work.
A good health promotion program has an impact on employees’ mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual wellness.
Corporate Wellness Companies