Planning and Implementation

Having a programme plan helps an organisation to stay on track, prioritise and evaluate the effectiveness of its workforce health promotion (WHP) programme. Department of Health (DH) will present the result of the corporate scanning and Health Day to the organisation and her staff. This will provide useful information for the wellness committee to identify opportunities to enhance staff health and wellbeing. Working with DH, the wellness committee is encouraged to prepare a ‘Year Plan’, with well considered and prioritised actions to address staff health needs over an achievable timeline and within means affordable to the organisation. The year plan should be devised with interventions at (i) policy, (ii) environmental and (iii) personal levels that contribute to a healthy workplace.

Health is shared responsibility. Whilst employers are primarily responsible for the health of an organisation including policies and physical environment; employee also need to assume personal responsibility. An important concept to include in the WHP is to combine individual strategies with environmental and policy changes as a way to increase impact by making it easier to achieve the behaviours change. Effective employer-sponsored activities will help employees make lifestyle changes. A supportive social and physical environment will facilitate employees to maintain healthy behaviours. Therefore, an effective WHP programme uses a combination of organisational policies, environmental interventions, and lifestyle and personal skills to improve employee wellness. Participating organisations are encouraged to plan its WHP within the scope of the five action areas as mentioned above. Other areas, based on organisational needs, can also be selected for intervention as long as the latter is evidence-based. However, participating organisation is encouraged to focus on small number of action areas with achievable outcomes than to embark on a diverse range of issues achieving minimal impact. Before starting WHP interventions, a year plan should be devised with interventions at (i) policy, (ii) environmental and (iii) personal levels that contribute to a healthy workplace.

Organisational policy interventions

Workplace policy is required to ensure sustainability of healthy environments. The organisation will be advised to formulate corporate policies in respect of the selected health promotion action areas. Policy enhancement is of utmost importance as this guides and drives all future health promotion activities of the organisation.

Supportive environmental measures

An important part of creating a support system for a WHP programme is to modify the physical work environment that promotes workplace health. The organisation will be encouraged to introduce changes to the work setting, work routine and / or facilities, such as active promotion of physical activities and provision of healthy food choices in the work site, in order to create an atmosphere that supports and sustains healthy lifestyle choices. Environmental changes, which are simple to introduce from the company perspective, can benefit large numbers of staff and prove to be cost-effective means of health improvement.

Lifestyle and personal health skills

Enhancing staff’s health knowledge and skill is also critical in enabling them to make healthier choices. DH will provide the organisation with suggestions of service providers for planning of health enhancement programmes for employees. Organisations have the liberty to select appropriate service providers to organise health promotion training / workshops for their staff. These classes are ideally conducted at the work site and at convenient times to maximize their reach to staff. Through these empowerment programmes, staff will be equipped with the knowledge and skills for making healthier choices for living. DH will provide continuous guidance throughout this stage.