Commentary
Health strategies - on the boardroom agenda
Maria Pia Chircop, CEO
The term "occupational health and safety" immediately leads us to understand the creation of safer, healthier workplaces and the prevention and avoidance of work-related illnesses and accidents.
In the UK a significant shift in focus has been recorded from work-related illnesses to improving health so that employees can perform better. Both employers and employees are urged to look after their health to decrease absenteeism figures.
Employers are encouraged to offer well-being programmes through the creation of a health assessment programme that is inclusive and available to all; confidential; linked to business drivers; and statistically validated and measured.
Benchmarking, to help employees understand their health status, and effective communication, articulating the benefits of such initiatives, are also included in such HR strategies.
Among various organisations that have seriously put health on their business agenda, one can find the Metropolitan Police Authority in the UK with their health promotion vans touring police headquarters across London, offering services, which include body mass index tests, blood tests and general health evaluations.
The White Paper 'Choosing Health' launched by the UK Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Health and Safety Executive talks widely on this government strategy.
The workplace is definitely the place to encourage people to look after their own health. Most of us spend about 60 per cent of our waking hours at the workplace, which is more office-led and computer-based than before, making musculoskeletal disorders and mental stress more common reasons for absence.
Moreover, we satisfy our thirst and hunger at work often through sugared teas and coffees, perhaps accompanied by biscuits, and foods with high levels of saturated fats, like chips and burgers from the staff canteen.
Our waistline and our brain definitely do not deserve such treatment. Research has shown that people who eat diets high in saturated fat had an increased risk of dementia (ref: web.sf.org/publications/brainbriefings/diet.html).
After a 10-hour work day, going to the gym can become stressful and, therefore, what we look for at the end of the day is another quick, perhaps unhealthy supper and off to bed for another day's work.
Now that the days are becoming longer and summer is approaching, we keep on promising ourselves to correct our diet and start exercising. Unfortunately, we keep shifting the priority of such an objective as work continues to prevail, especially for those occupying high positions in their organisation. It is the role of HR practitioners, as employers, to encourage employees to lead healthier lifestyles and to make health and well-being a boardroom issue.
Health awareness days, providing advice on health as well as facilities and equipment for exercising during breaks and subsidising gym membership can be a few of the many initiatives HR can offer to the workforce; and this not only for the benefit of the individual but also for healthier and more profitable workplaces.
In the UK, evidence shows that workers who take regular exercise, maintain a healthy diet and refrain from over drinking and smoking, take less time off work and are much more productive.
The FHRD's message in this commentary is that we should not wait for the government to impose such health strategies but, as HR professionals, we must be proactive and gain the title of catalysts of change.
Sources: Personnel Today and People Management: October 2005.
|
