What are the development trends of occupational health management (BGM) in the working world 4.0? Especially at the turn of the year one wishes for a healthy new year. Health is the highest good in the life of humans and therefore many resolutions are made at the turn of the year. At Reflect the healthy organisation is the focus of our consulting approach. Only a mentally and physically healthy employee can develop his or her potential, which ultimately, with balanced, healthy leadership, leads to an economically healthy, productive and successful company.
Figure 1: Healthy Organization - Organizational Health (Reflect)
But what demands does the working world 4.0 make on the employee? How will companies change in terms of digitalization and "new work" in the coming decade? The study "#whatsnext - Working Healthily in the Digital World of Work" was carried out by the Institute for Occupational Health Management (IFBG) in cooperation with the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) and the Haufe Group and surveyed 825 companies with the aim of identifying development trends and thus deriving fields of action for occupational health management (BGM) measures. (You can download the study at the end of the blog post).
We have summarised the results for you and in this note we show you ways in which you as a company or manager can contribute to a healthy organisation through BGM measures.
Use of occupational health management
The basis for economic success is the know-how and performance of a company's employees. Most organizations know this by now, because 40% of the organizations surveyed already use a holistic BGM, only one in eleven organizations has no health promotion offers at all.
Size of the organization
The larger the organisation, the better the health promotion offers. Small and medium-sized organisations tend to focus more on fulfilling legal requirements, such as in occupational safety. Large organizations often maintain fitness studios and offer measures regarding e.g. addiction, leadership, employee counselling or relaxation. Attention is also paid to ergonomically designed workplaces or production processes.
Most important BGM topics
In the next five years the BGM topics will change significantly. Lifelong learning, health communication and psychological risk assessment are the future leaders - while topics such as burn-out or permanent accessibility are no longer seen as pressing issues. Not disease-preventing but resource-enhancing measures are gaining in importance (lifelong learning, sleep and recovery).
Role model function of managers
The commitment of managers is considered the most important factor in promoting employee health. It is even much more important for the further development of workplace health promotion (WHP) than a higher budget or larger personnel resources. The high value of leadership for health is also evident in many other parts of the survey.
Employee flexibility
The work-life balance of employees remains important. Measures to make working hours and location more flexible and measures for caring employees will gain in importance from the point of view of the organisations. Flexible models such as lifetime working time accounts or sabbaticals are also becoming more important in terms of forms of employment.
Change in competences
Leadership competence will relinquish job-related professional competence as an important area of competence for coping with work. Digital/IT competence will gain the most.
Digitisation of BGM - data protection
The digital BGM will gain significantly in importance. This includes above all the use of health apps, wearables and health portals. But the trend towards the use of game-based approaches ("gamification") will also continue and even increase. Against this background, the protection of personal and health-related data will become an even more important issue.
New BGM offers due to changed requirements
From the point of view of the organisations surveyed, employees will be confronted with more and more complex tasks in the future due to the advancing digitalisation. In this context, distractions and interruptions at the workplace will also increase.
For the BGM this means that above all offers for people with emotionally/psychologically stressful jobs should be developed.
"Aging Workforce"
The demographic change is progressing unceasingly and older employees are not uncommon in companies. This development is also reflected in BGM. Taking into account the needs of older employees is of paramount importance before considering gender relations and dealing with religious and cultural diversity.
Our recommendations:
Lead your company and your employees healthily through the next decade. The following measures can be helpful and sensible:
- Healthy leadership will become one of the most important competencies. Support your managers with training, lectures, workshops. Be aware of your role model function yourself by setting a good example.
- Keep your employees mentally fit and promote lifelong learning B. with semi-annual training and individual coaching so that employees can develop their full potential.
- Digitisation enables almost complete freedom of working hours and location. Establish flexible working time models and enable employees to work according to their individual life situation. This trust will be rewarded.
- Be open to new employment relationships and time-outs such as sabbaticals. After a time-out you will get motivated and loyal employees back with new ideas.
- In medium to large companies the creation of a health coach is conceivable. He/she will coach and motivate you and your employees in various areas of BGM! From daily sports sessions in a team to monthly nutrition or mindfulness lectures, everything is conceivable.
- Take on responsibility for the older members of the team and offer offers tailored to their needs, e.g. in the area of technology development or generation workshops on special strengths and potential in mixed-age teams.
- Strengthen the resources of your employees and ensure a good balance between creation and recreation. Holistic concepts that facilitate a healthy culture have a more sustainable effect than rules and regulations, such as working time laws, which are often circumvented.
- Make the success of your BGM measures measurable through key figures and communicate them. Health communication becomes an important pillar in the "War for Talent".