According to W.H.O. the importance of worksite health promotion has always been understated in the past. This is rather unfortunate because the reason behind such an act is not based on credible or pragmatic studies. They are simply acts of ignorance .
The truth can be understood by considering some of the health related facts of modern world. Nearly 50% of Americans have one chronic health condition and nearly half have multiple chronic ailments. More than 80% of medical spending goes toward the care of such health issues .
The reciprocations of such problems usually hit, even though indirectly, mostly the workplaces . This is because of the medical benefits workplaces are required to provide its workforce as well as the number of working days that are lost because of health related absenteeism. These issues can be avoided simply by adopting a health promotion program that could help the workers follow a healthy path throughout their life.
Quantifying Benefits of Worksite Health Promotion Programs
Financial costs that can burden an unhealthy workplace are tremendous. It can be easily analyzed. The first step in doing so is by calculating the cost of idleness (such as absenteeism) in employees that may or may not be related to their health.
Some of the measurable resource wastages related to poor health management are 1. Health Insurance Claims. 2. Short and long term disability costs- data show that the costs of short and long term disability has overtaken the overall employee compensation in America in recent years 3. Mental health: poor performance related to mental illness has been reported to have caused worse business outcomes 4. Accidents: stress related accidents are more common than that caused by negligence 5. Litigations: due to poor working conditions 6. Presenteeism.
Strategies of Needs Assessment
Needs assessment strategies are often chose according to the specific needs of a particular workplace. Some macro approaches that does not consider each employee specifically are 1. Medical Science approach: data is collected about diseases or patterns of diseases that may affect the company workforce related to their lifestyle, environment and demography . 2. Health Planning Approach: Health planning approach relies on programs delivered by Health service providers who will assess the requirements of a specific workplace and outline its needs.
Other than those mentioned above some personalized approaches are also available such as 1. Health Risk Appraisals: Health Risk appraisals analyze a person’s health history. This help in determining the vulnerability of these people to preventable illness or serious injury. This is an individual based approach . The data is collected from each individual separately unlike the aforementioned approaches. 2. Interest Surveys: They are meant to collect data about what the employees are interested in . An uninterested group of employees working against health promotion could sabotage the very purpose of such programs.
Liabilities associated with workplace health promotion
Workplace health promotion programs are subject to any laws related to employer liability for employee injury. According to California law, employee injury is not covered by the employer if he/she was 1. Outside of his/her work hours 2. Was travelling to or from work 3. Was doing something personal that was not related to work .
But in such cases where an employee was forced to attend a work related program such as health programs, an employee is entitled to compensation if 1. He/she was vulnerable to pressure to participate in the program 2. Employer is arranging and funding the program 3. The activity is regularly scheduled 4. The employer benefits from the program .
A solution to addressing the liability issues is by having employees sign a release of liability form and making sure that these activities are scheduled outside of working hours. Strictly screening the instructors to let only certified ones is also a valid solution.
Transtheoretical Change Model in Health Behavior
Transtheoretical change model integrates the biological, psychological, and social models to assess the processes involved in intentional behavioral change. Assessing the changes in workforce due to healthcare programs through transtheoretical change model shall help us in dealing with the employees’ issues more prudently.
The different stages of this model are 1. Precontemplation: the beginning stage caused by lack of knowledge or being under informed about the consequences of a certain lifestyle and the importance of these programs. 2. Contemplation: The employee is aware of the advantages and disadvantages of this new program. The conflict of having to believe in either one of them can put them in a confusion that lasts for long. 3. Preparation: employees will be prepared to understand the workplace health programs and use them for their own betterment. 4. Action: Any action undertaken by employees than can provide great outcomes in relation to the health promotion program goal is considered as Action. 5. Maintenance and Termination: the last two stages where the employees switch to maintenance mode and later termination of program.
A sample budget plan for Workplace Health Promotion
Budget data should include categories such as 1. Administration: includes different materials, equipments, travel expenses, needed stationary and software for implementation of health promotion programs. 2. Staff Expenses: includes the salaries of staff during training and their development charges. 3. Resource Development: includes the marketing consultancy fee postage and dissemination fee, etc. 4. Training: includes the venue, catering, the trainer fees etc. 5. Evaluation: specific to the program adopted for achieving a target.
Other categories that can be included are 1. Wages/Benefits 2. Materials and Supplies 3. Memberships/Affiliations 4. Health Education Materials 5. Health Coaching 6. Health Plan design changes 7. Equipments 8. Incentives etc . After careful consideration an exact amount is calculated and allotted to each category.
Best practices for workplace health promotion
Some of the best practices for workplace health promotion are 1. Ensuring the participation of all the staffs in the programs 2. Organizational freedom and transparency in conduct can reduce stress in employees to improve their health 3. The formation of a safety committee from all the sections and departments to ensure the participation of all employees from all these sections. 4. Assessing the risks and hazards involved in the working environment .
Other commonly accepted practices involved in workplace health promotion are 1. Providing training programs for the employees in fields where they are lacking such as first aid training 2. Laying out an emergency plan to deal with accidents such as fire. 3. Cleaning the work environment and removing all objects that increase risk factor. 4. Documenting and reporting all the data related to health promotion. 5. Finally, assessing the outcome of all these practices with due diligence .
Evaluation plan for Workplace health promotion
Health care evaluation plans are required to assess the outcome of any health promotion project. This can be ensured through a variety of assessment practices such as 1. Process Evaluation 2. Outcome Evaluation 3. Quantitative Evaluation 4. Qualitative evaluation etc .
For the purpose of developing a sound evaluation plan we need to identify some of the key indicators of evaluation such as 1. Resources disseminated 2. Participants 3. Training materials produced 4. Percentage of satisfied participants 5 Resources and documents developed.
For example, suppose the objective is to increase awareness about ill effects of smoking. A viable strategy to achieve this could be by disseminating awareness programs to employees about the same. A possible impact assessment method would be evaluating the number of employees who actually decided to quit smoking and data collection is achieved by noting the number of employees who attended the program willfully. The process evaluation can be assessed similarly or by collecting feedback from the participants.
References
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Liability Concerns & Workplace Physical Activity Programs. (2013). Retrieved March 12, 2016, from California Department of Public Health: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/cpns/Documents/Second%20FinalWorkplace%20Wellness%20(ChangeLabs).pdf
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(2011). The Health Promotion Strategic Framework. HSE National Health Promotion Office.
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