Effective Workplace Strategies

A healthy workplace is an environment where both the people are healthy and the organization they work in is healthy. Today, more than ever, we know that employee health is strongly connected to productivity and therefore linked with the success of business. A growing number of employers are recognizing that for a workplace health promotion strategy to be effective and have impact it needs to be comprehensive.

A Comprehensive Workplace Health Promotion Program incorporates the components of: Health and Safety, Individual Employee Lifestyle Practices and Organizational Environment. (*adapted from An introduction to Comprehensive Workplace Health Promotion THCU 2004)

All three of these categories need to be kept in mind when you assess the health of your workplace and plan your healthy workplace activities. Although these categories are separated in theory, they overlap in practice. For example, employee stress is primarily caused by organizational issues in the working environment, but healthy lifestyle habits will increase an individual's ability to cope with stressful situations.

A comprehensive workplace health approach also includes initiatives from a number of promotion strategies. These include:

  1. Awareness Raising

    Awareness Raising - activities that increase employees' general knowledge about a health topic in order to help them make healthy lifestyle choices. For example:

    • Use bulletin boards to feature resources related to healthy lifestyles
    • Include short articles in internal newsletters or staff e-mails
    • Dedicate an accessible area to display pamphlets and resources regarding healthy lifestyles
  2. Skill Building

    Skill Building - activities that provide employees with the skills needed in order to change and support positive behaviour. For example:

    • Find out what healthy lifestyle topic employees are interested in and offer presentations or workshops through "lunch and learn" sessions
    • Encourage employees to participate in healthy lifestyles contests
    • Offer incentive programs
  3. Creating a Supportive Environment

    Creating a Supportive Environment - ongoing, sustainable activities which encourage participation in changing health practices and behaviours and strive to make it easier for employees to make healthy choices. For example:

    • Have flexible working hours to allow employees to balance work-life activities (i.e. to participate in physical activities, to support breastfeeding mothers, to attend medical appointments, etc.)
    • Offer appropriate healthy foods in workplace cafeterias, vending machines and at workplace functions
    • Provide on-going education for management and employees
    • Offer a workplace quit smoking program/support group
  4. Healthy Workplace Policy

    Healthy Workplace Policy - workplace policies that are designed to define and support healthy lifestyle choices. These policies help to clarify roles and expectations between employees and employers. For example:

    • Have policies regarding food choices catering for meetings and vending machines
    • Create a breastfeeding supportive workplace policy.

Critical Success Factors for Comprehensive Workplace Health Promotion*

  1. Senior management involvement
  2. Participatory planning
  3. Primary focus on employees' needs
  4. Optimal use of on-site resources
  5. Integration
  6. Recognition that a person's health is determined by an interdependent set of factors
  7. Tailoring to the special features of each workplace environment
  8. Evaluation
  9. Long-term commitment

* From The Case for Comprehensive Workplace Health: Making "Cents" of a Good Idea (THCU)