Workplace health is one of the employer's obligations. It is always possible to stick to the legal minimum; but companies that decide to commit to the health and well-being of their employees have understood everything. Focusing on the well-being and health of employees means sustaining your business and keeping it in good momentum; it means attracting and retaining talent, making them more committed and present. However, once the decision has been made, how do you approach health and well-being in the workplace? This is what we propose to answer in this article.
What are the bases of a corporate health and well-being strategy?
First of all, if this is not done, it is necessary to draw up the single occupational risk assessment document (DUERP). So you will comply with the health law provided for in the Labor Code. Beyond the legal point of view, the single document makes it possible from the established diagnosis to define objectives. To do this, involve your company's departments: human resources, the QHSE department, the OHS prevention officer, the CSE representative. All of these people have their own vision of what could be improved, depending on their daily lives and their relationships with employees. Even if you remain the sole decision-maker, everyone's opinions are to be taken into account.
Addressing health and well-being in the workplace is all the more easy if a strategy has been defined upstream.
Quantify and then qualify the intentions you want to give to the company:
- number of days of absence per year,
- number of accidents at work,
- duration of sick leave,
- evaluation of staff satisfaction,
- turnover…
These indicators adapted to your business configuration will be followed to assess the preventive health and well-being actions implemented.
All you have to do is plan the preventive actions according to their scope: short term, medium term and long term. For example, print and display our advice to prevent cancer can take you less than five minutes. And yet, this poster should raise awareness or at least questions that will lead to interesting conversations with your employees. On the other hand, a skin cancer awareness workshop will take a little more time to set up. Allow a few weeks instead, the time to coordinate with the intervening team.
How to implement a health and well-being strategy in a company?
Several ways are available to you to approach health and well-being in the workplace. They will depend mainly on the objectives you have set.
Changing the working environment
These health and well-being actions may be offered to employees to enable them to reduce and prevent MSDs (musculoskeletal disorders), guarantee their safety and promote their well-being. We are thus thinking of the supply of ergonomic chairs or even ball chairs (Swiss ball). Workstations with adjustable height to alternate seated position and standing or semi-standing position are also recommended. If you have the possibility, you could set up a gym with yoga mats available. This will encourage your employees to practice regular physical activity.
We could have started with the safety aspect of the work environment. Because if there are changes to be made to certain high-risk workstations, your priority is security and safety equipment.
Evolution of working conditions
After having assessed the hardship of certain working conditions by discussing with your employees, solutions are to be put in place. In collaboration with managers, you can introduce more suitable working hours for certain workstations. If a task is too strenuous and has psychosocial risks for your employees, you could put two people there rather than one.
A great idea, which doesn't cost much, is to set up regular interviews with your employees to assess their well-being in the workplace, the atmosphere and their mental health. It will of course be necessary to monitor these indicators of well-being in the company over time; maintain the actions implemented and adapt them according to the results obtained.
Health prevention training
The next step is to suggest that your employees take charge of the health issues that concern them. Give them access to online training and webinars in which they can participate freely.
Organize in the year one or more days of company training, with workshops led by specialists in health prevention and well-being in the workplace. There is nothing like actively participating in discussions around health topics that are too little known and yet so common. And, should we add, mostly preventable.
Provide during these interventions self-tests related to the health theme mentioned. This really allows employees to become responsible and active in taking charge of their health.
Get support for the implementation of your health and well-being strategy in your company.
