TOTAL WORKER HEALTH

Ideas You Can Implement Right Now to Integrate Protection and Promotion of Worker Well-Being

Even small steps can start you on the path toward a safer and healthier workforce. The following resources provide examples of simple ways you can begin integrating safety, health, and well-being.

1. Dedicate a portion of time at meetings for updates from other departments
   • Share experiences regularly and have routine two-way communications
2. Hold joint meetings between health protection, health promotion, human resources, workers’ compensation, and other departments with a stake in worker safety, health, and well-being.
   • As you make more progress, invite more departments, e.g., disability & return to work, loss control, etc.
3. Discuss plans for the future so that leaders from different departments can coordinate strategies
   • Address the shared goal of improving worker safety, health, and well-being by developing shared activities and objectives
   • Encourage cross marketing, e.g., an initiative to reduce stress could be timed to coincide with presentations on work scheduling and job control
4. Ask employees what factors are getting in the way of their safety, health, work-life balance, or productivity
   • What connections do employees see among the challenges they’ve identified?

   • Employees can be the eyes and ears for safety, health, and well-being

   • How can employees help develop or suggest low-cost, feasible solutions to their concerns?
   • Do employees feel their privacy is fully protected?
5. Sponsor brief lunch-and-learns
   • Share introductory materials on occupational safety and health with other staff and vice versa
   • Ask each group to cross-train others on foundational principles specific to their field
6. Invite staff to share their expertise to address shared goals
   • Invite health protection staff to review health risk assessment (HRA) survey instruments to help make the connection with occupational risk factors. Invite health education staff for an occupational risk assessment walk-through to see how improving health risks can reduce occupational risks
7. Incorporate new information into trainings
   • For example, a stress management workshop could include information on how organizational policies can reduce workplace stressors
8. Consider sharing physical resources and space: anything from adjoining cubicles, to a break room, to an office, to the floor of a building
   • Encourage communication and informal collaboration among staff of health protection, human resources, and others that have a vested interest in worker safety, health, and well-being
9. Give workers more flexibility and control over their working conditions and schedules whenever possible
   • Ask employees how their working conditions and schedules can better support their safety, health, and well-being
10. Ensure that your built environment, policies, and work schedules enhance safety, health, and well-being
    • Make sure workspaces and job tasks are safe and healthy
    • Provide paid time and free onsite access to healthier food, physical activity, health screenings, stress reduction resources, and health education
    • More examples of policies, programs, and practices that could support Total Worker Health include:
      • Worker-centered operations and worker participation in workplace problem solving
      • Paid family & sick leave, paid medical benefits
      • Equitable wages
      • Safe staffing, voluntary overtime
      • Discrimination, harassment, and violence prevention
      • Health-enhancing work organization and supervision
      • Work Intensification prevention
      • Respect, fair performance appraisals & advancement opportunities
      • Work-Life Integration
      • Attention to work factors causing chronic conditions
      • Confidential occupational health services
      • Support for productive aging across working life
      • Prioritizing workplace flexibility
      • Encouraging cross-generational interactions
      • Investing in training and skill-building for all workers

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