Drug Education and Intervention in the Workplace

Workplace wellness is in the process of evolving.

Early efforts to set up healthy workplaces focused on safety at the worksite and injury prevention for workers.

More recently, programs are designed to assist  workers to choose healthier behaviors like being more physically active or stopping smoking. Campaigns to increase awareness, educational sessions to expand knowledge, opportunities to acquire new skills, and changes to policies to make it easier for workers to make healthy choices are often included. This approach is taken because the workplace is a great way to reach people, since most adult Canadians invest a large part of their day at work.

While safety and lifestyle programs are 2 aspects that contribute to the health of employees, workplace wellness is more effective when a third factor is brought into the equation-the environment at work.

How the workplace impacts health.

Increasingly, it is understood that the workplace itself has a powerful affect on people’s health. When individuals are satisfied with their job, they are more constructive and tend to be healthier. When staff members feel that the environment at work is harmful, they feel stressed. Stress has a large influence on employee mental and physical health, and in turn, on productivity.

Consultant Graham Lowe has identified 5 components of workplace culture that directly affect employees’ health and the health of the employer overall-credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie. The underlying idea is that businesses must truly are concerned about the wellbeing of their employees.

Employers today who want to attract and retain good employees have leaders who be aware of the connection between employee satisfaction and employee health and believe that workplace wellness is a business plan.  Their management practices include making reasonable demands on time and energy, involving employees in decision making, rewarding work well done, openly communicating, and offering support to balance work and home life.

Employers know that staff members are looking for jobs that compensate well, have good benefits, are interesting, and include great health and safety programs. So in today’s competitive hiring market, it’s become more valuable than ever for organizations to enhance job satisfaction and make sure that staff members enjoy being on the job. Workplace wellness benefits both employers and staff members.

How does workplace wellness benefit the corporation?

A workplace wellness program can help a employer to:

• attract and keep employees;
• lower the expenditures of disability, prescription drugs, and absenteeism;
• reduce the effects of a stressful workplace;
• decrease health costs or keep them contained; and
• improve morale by organizing a happy, supportive environment.

How Do Company Health Promotion Programs Advance employees?

workers of corporations that have a Company Wellness Program are likely to have:

• increased awareness and knowledge of ways to improve their health;
• a better (less stressful) workplace;
• increased protection from injury;
• improved health and wellbeing;
• higher morale and greater job satisfaction;
• increased productiveness and performance at work;
• reduced personal medical care expenditures; and
• a more relaxed/flexible approach to health concerns.

Both employers and staff members have a responsibility for planning a healthy workplace. Workers are expected to arrive at work in good health, and the company is expected to support an environment that allows staff members to maintain good health, enjoy their work, and contribute to the company’s success.

Workplace wellness is much more than a “lunch and learn” program. It’s about planning a “people first” approach to doing business. It’s about taking care of employees, implementing a beneficial work environment, and paying attention to the factors that keep employees healthy and happy at work. A good Corporate Wellness Program has an effect on employees’ mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being.