| General, Press, Studies/Reports
What are the challenges involved in Occupational Health Management (OHM)? And what recommendations for actions can we draw from these? A recent study by Roland Berger has looked at precisely that.
In his study "Corporate Health Management: Thinking beyond health in business", business consultant Roland Berger investigates the present and future of OHM in business. The changes that we have all experienced and had to make because of the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, show just how fast-paced our personal lives, society and the associated changes are – and therefore how quickly change happens in our workplaces.
"The issue of health in economics and politics is more salient than ever before. Never before have employers had to focus so much on occupational health and safety and never before was the impact of effective occupational health and safety on the financial success of businesses as evident as it is today," says Berger in the foreword to his study.
Roland Berger addresses the potentials, hurdles and long-term success factors of future OHM.
Occupational physicians = in-house epidemiologists
"Just as epidemiologists will play a greater role in the political sphere in future, so too will OHM managers or occupational physicians be further integrated into business processes over the coming years," says Dr Matthias Conradt, INSITE CEO.
The "New OHM" requires, on the one hand, an approach that takes into account the entire organisation,i.e. a prioritisation from senior management down, but also far-reaching overlaps between business, management and culture.
On the other hand, you need to customise the system i.e. to take a closer look
- at which services make sense for which companies:
according to company culture, market situation, culture or even employee demographics; - plus what OHM initiatives should be offered to which employees:
more junior members of staff, for example, require different services to more senior colleagues, while employees who are under the double strain of caring for a family member and raising kids need different support than an employee who has entered a new environment all alone because of their job situation.
"We see this study as validation of us and our services," says Dr Conradt. "The EAP is richly varied and can be adapted to individual personal or organisational circumstances." The strength of employee assistance lies in the fact that it helps both managers and specialist functions to develop and provide the right services for the organisation, and also helps each individual to reassess their current situation and to develop solutions.
As an OHM service provider, a key question here for INSITE is what are the factors that affect mental health and how can we work with our customers towards successful OHM. We've put together the Key Facts from the study in a handy fact sheet..
The complete study is also available for download.
