What Resolutions Can Employers Make for Employee Health in 2017?
January is often seen as a time of new beginnings. The start of a new year often prompts goal setting, and strategic planning for success along with increased motivation. Improving health and well-being is one of the most popular themes for resolutions among individuals.
But what about employers? Many employers are already taking some of the necessary steps that are required of them to keep their employees safe and healthy, but not as many are thinking ahead and including employee health as a strategic piece in the success of their business.
Apex Occupational Health Solutions is a team of trusted advisors in
- Occupational Health
- Ergonomics & Functional Services
- Workstation Health
- Employee Wellness
- Stress to Strength – Team Performance Program
We’ve asked experts from all areas of our business for their suggestions on what resolutions employers can make to their employees with respect to employee health.
Occupational Health
Occupational Health is dedicated to monitoring and protecting employee health throughout their entire work life cycle. From pre-hire to retire, your employee’s health is your responsibility as an employer!
Occupational Health programs focus on both employees and employers. By understanding the potential health risks of your unique business, we can ensure your employees have the physical ability to do the job safely. Periodic screenings allow for early identification and intervention – allowing you to act, before it becomes a compensation claim.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Start the year off right – a post offer or pre-hire assessment ensures your candidates can safely perform the physical aspects of the job. Now is the time to get baseline measures for ongoing workplace exposures like noise.
- Include Workplace Health in your safety meetings. If First Aid Training is being arranged, now is the time to update your “Blood Borne Pathogen” program. “Preventing Cuts & Lacerations” on the agenda? How about offering a Tetanus Booster?
- Schedule and post information on health screening clinics (like hearing tests), well in advance. Use this time for education and fit testing your PPE as well.
- Healthy employees are more productive, adaptable to change and more resilient. Resolve to keep them that way.
Industrial Ergonomics & Functional Services
Taking a proactive approach to ergonomics is an important first step in reducing work-related absences and costs. It’s important for employers to understand the risks associated with certain tasks within the organization and adjust those jobs to make them safer for employees – leading to fewer injuries, better morale, and greater productivity.
Employers can resolve to improve employee ergonomic health by:
- Ensuring that new/prospective hires are fit to perform the physical demands of a job (can approach from an employer or colleague perspective – safety can affect all workers)
- Ensuring that injured workers can safely return to work (can approach from an employer or colleague perspective – safety can affect all workers)
- Improving employee engagement by acknowledging (and improving upon) their ergonomic concerns
- Examining their recent disability claims, injury/incident logs, and near miss reports to identify high risk situations within the workplace
- Acting upon high risk situations by working with 3rd party assessors to obtain an objective sense of risk.
Workstation Health
Research and the work we do at Apex is showing us that about 15% of the workforce who are working at computer workstations are suffering from some sort of pain or discomfort.
As an employer, we encourage you to resolve to:
- Give your team the tools or voice to report those discomforts so they can be helped before they turn into issues that impact their ability to work productively. Our ground breaking Workstation Ergonomic Software gives you the ability to screen out and help those who are in pain, check out ergoblitz.com for more information.
Sitting for extended periods of time has been shown to lead to a variety of health issues including obesity and metabolic syndrome and is associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease.
Employers can resolve to:
- Help employees Quit the Sit! As the popularity and availability of sit/stand workstations has increased; the affordability has improved. Price is no longer a reason not to purchase a solution for your team. Check out our many sit/stand options and ask us about our volume based pricing.
Employee Wellness
The goal of employee wellness is to take a pro-active approach to employee health. It’s based on health promotion through education and awareness, creating an environment conducive to wellness, and providing skill building opportunities. Employers can resolve to improve employee health as it relates to wellness by:
- Offering monthly resources in the form of a newsletter or email update to educate employees and create awareness on a variety of health topics
- Consulting with a Wellness Professional to build a strategic wellness program that sends a consistent message and provides regular opportunities for participation
- Working with cafeterias or catering providers to make healthier food options available and more appealing to employees
- Providing an opportunity for employees to participate in physical activity onsite at the workplace such as onsite yoga, designating and building a fitness/physical activity space, highlighting a walking trail
Stress to Strength – Team Performance Program
Most HR professionals now recognize that mental health concerns are increasing in the workplace. While this has a direct impact on organizational cost, the greater issue is the cost to the individual. There are more employees seeking counselling, taking stress leave, and WSIB costs are rising. Where are these stresses coming from? Is the workplace or the individual responsible? The Stress to Strength program is our unique solution to workplace stress and supporting mental well-being. Regarding this area of employee mental well-being, employers can resolve to:
- Commit to making a tangible difference to the human experience of your workplace. Steward of people energy and get more output.
- Be proactive in fostering energy in the workplace.
- Help colleagues understand and focus on their occupational passions.
- Develop tolerance for everyone’s unique communication styles.
- Book a team-building session designed to leverage each others strengths
- Train leaders to focus on creating a culture that meets the needs of the whole team.
- Introduce changes by involving stakeholders early in the process.
- Have a one-on-one short term goal conversation with each direct report weekly
How to Make Employee Health Resolutions Stick
Measure. Just like any business goal, employee health goals must be measurable and specific. Rather than just providing the budget to upgrade office chairs or keyboard trays, commit to reducing incidences of RSIs or reported discomforts by a certain % as a result of the equipment upgrade. This means ergonomic education, regular follow up and reporting are necessary to determine success.
Share. Sharing employee health goals with employees keeps the employer accountable, while improving trust and buy-in for the programs offered. Communicate the goal of hearing conservation for 100% of the employee population.
Consistency. Deliver consistent programs and consistent communications to your employees. This builds trust and improves participation and buy-in for your employee health programs.
If employee health is part of your organization’s business strategy in 2017 and beyond, contact us to learn more about how we can help you achieve your goals.