Health promotion in the Scottish workplace: a case for moving the goalposts

Abstract

The workplace provides an important opportunity for health promotion, both in terms of allowing access to a large proportion of the adult population and encouraging developments within the workplace structure to improve health. This paper reports on the findings of a survey of Scottish workplaces carried out in 1996 for the Health Education Board for Scotland to assess the state of health promotion activity in the Scottish workplace setting. The results echo those from previous surveys in that most health promotion effort was centred around health and safety, smoking, and alcohol issues, particularly for the smaller and less well-resourced businesses. Under one-fifth of businesses surveyed addressed areas such as stress and mental health, which are being seen as increasingly important in terms of their contribution to the well-being of the employee and the organization. The main implication of these findings is that it is smaller businesses who potentially have the most to gain from workplace health promotion. In this context, the construction of relevant and sustainable health promotion programmes requires an organizational development perspective in order to encourage such businesses to regard workplace health promotion as part of good business practice.

Patterns and predictors of workplace health promotion: cross-sectional findings from a company survey in Germany

“…Furthermore, our findings are consistent with evidence from previous studies [ 25 - 27 ] showing that the chances for WHP implementation – especially as far as more elaborate forms of WHP activity are concerned – are significantly reduced in small and economically threatened companies. The latter is easily understood by the fact that in situations of businesss hardship budgetary restrictions are sharp and the management’s attention is largely focussed on how to restabilise the market position of the company in the short term, leaving very little scope for activities (such as WHP) which are unlikely to pay off immediately.…”

“…Previous studies found public services to be much more active in WHP than the private sector of the economy [ 25 , 30 ]. These findings are confirmed by our bivariate results according to which public establishments show a 44% higher general WHP prevalence rate and an almost threefold prevalence rate of WHP level A.…”

Promoting mental health through employment and developing healthy workplaces: the potential of natural supports at work

“…Historically, mental health has not been a strong focus for employers (Waghorn et al, 1993;Health Education Authority, 1997;Docherty et al, 1999), beyond demonstration projects such as that undertaken within the National Health Service for the Department of Health (Hardy et al, 1997). However, increasing emphasis is now being placed on promoting mental health at work, through initiatives such as the 'Working Minds' component of the Department of Health's 'Mind Out' campaign (Department of Health, 2001), the former Health Education Authority's organizational stress programme (Health Education Authority, 1996) and the HSE's work in this area [e.g.…”

Space of Discipline and Governmentality: The Singer Sewing Machine Factory, Clydebank, in the Twentieth Century

“…In accounts such as those given by Docherty et al (1999), the workplace is seen as being important in health promotion, aiming to shape a working body which was lean and healthy. Through provisions such as the annual sports gala and copious opportunities for team sports, Singer aimed to mould a workforce which was healthy and cohesive, positively reflected in their work in the factory:…”