Older employees

1
Older employees expectations towards health
promotion programmes at workplaces

• Krzysztof Puchalski
• Patrycja Wojtaszczyk
• Eliza Iwanowicz
• National Centre for Workplace Health Promotion
• Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Lódz,
  Poland

2
The National Centre for Workplace Health Promotion

• Organisational part of Nofer Institute of
  Occupational Medicine
• Established in 1997
• Coordinates National Network for WHP

3
The ageing population

• Great achievement and result of improving living
  and working conditions
• Changes in the life goals and family patterns
  less children, more singles
• Social and economic problem for modern societies
  POLAND - the percentage of 65- year old people in
  the whole population is changing in the following
  way
• 1986r. - 9,5
• 1995r. - 11,2
• 2020r. - 15,9According to The Prognosis of
  Polish Population in Voivodships for years
  1996-2020, Boleslawski L., Marciniak G., Warsaw
  1997.

4
Workplace health promotion

• Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) is the combined
  efforts of employers, employees and
• society to improve the health and well-being of
  people at work.
• This can be achieved through a combination of
• improving the work organisation and the working
  environment
• promoting active participation
• encouraging personal development
• EN WHP. 1997

5
Effectiveness in WHP

• Depends on many issues, including
• Active participation
• Management involvement
• Quality of the intervention
• Are the forms of intervention and topics included
  into it interesting for the participants?

6
How to choose the right policy?

• Assessment of needs and problems in the
  organisation
• GENERAL ASSESSMENT OF THE POPULATION NEEDS

7
The survey

• Carried out in 2002
• An interview based on a questionnaire
• a random sample of 1138 employees of two age
  groups 45-55 years old (the researched group)
  and 25-35 years old (the control group)
• 250 Polish big and medium-sized enterprises
  (employing at least 100 workers)
• 50,2 older respondents (researched group) and
  49,8 younger ones (control group)
• 48 women and 52 men

8
The survey

• Main objective to find out Whether the group
  of Polish 45 plus employees requires health
  promotion programmes prepared and implemented
  particularly for them?

9
The survey

• understanding and self-assessment of health
  status
• health locus of control
• perceived the influence of selected behaviours on
  health
• motives for healthy or unhealthy behaviours or
  being passive in this field
• beliefs concerning relations between health and
  work
• the prevalence of particular healthy and
  unhealthy behaviours
• expectations and preferences concerning workplace
  health promotion

10
Three areas of interest

• General attitude towards WHP in the organisation
• Individually preferred health-related behaviour
  change patterns
• Forms of support in healthy living expected from
  company

11
General attitude toward WHP in the organisation

• 89,9 (N1132) of the asked workers were
  convinced that companies should go beyond health
  and safety precautions required by the law.
• The opinion was not influenced by any
  demographic, social or economic factors
• A little over 10 separated work and health from
  each other

12
Individually preferred forms of changing health
related behaviour (N1134)

• Only 5,7 do not want to make any changes in
  their behaviour
• 15 never tried to change anything in their
  behaviour

13
Individually preferred forms of changing health
related behaviour (N1134)

• Act on their own, without any kind of help
  (48,8)
• Work individually, supervised by a specialist
  (28,7)
• Participate in an organised training, workshop
  etc. (10,3)
• Work with friends, gentleman's agreement (6,1)
• Other ways (0,3)

14
Individually preferred forms of changing health
related behaviour (N1134)

• The answers were slightly depending on the gender
  and education but not age of the respondents
• Men were more likely to work on their own (54,1
  of men, v. 43,9 of women) and women were more
  eager to work with specialist (24,9 of men
  v.32,1 of women) and in groups (7,2 of men v.
  13,2 of women)

15
Individually preferred forms of changing health
related behaviour (N1134)

• The preferences depended on the education level
  of respondents
• Secondary school only 39,2 individually,
  without support 39 with help from specialist,
  2 training not willing to make any changes
  14
• Vocational school/high school 50 individually,
  without support 29/27 - with help from
  specialist, training - 5,8/11
• University degree 47,6 -individually, without
  support 29 - with help from specialist,
  training - 12

16
Forms of support in healthy living expected from
company

• What would you expect from and ideal company?
• The respondents could choose max. 3 different
  activities from an offered list

17
Forms of support in healthy living expected from
company

• 50 - services of specialist covered by the
  company
• 34,6 - management should make sure that the work
  is not too stressful
• 29 - assuring high level of safety and comfort
  at workplace
• 28,9 - co- financing holidays for employees
• 24,9 extra medical check - ups

18
Forms of support in healthy living expected from
company

• 20 - organising sport activities
• 20 - company doctor services
• 20 - vaccination (flu, hepatitis)
• 15 - investments in the social facilities
• 14 - separating non smokers from ETS
• 13, 5 training on coping with stress
• Less than 5 - healthy menu in the canteen
  supporting smoking cessation healthy lifestyle
  education

19
Forms of support in healthy living expected from
company

• Age influenced the choices
• company doctor services 24,5 of the older
  respondents/ 15 of the younger respondents
• organising sport activities 12 older / 29,5
  younger
• managements assuring that the work is not too
  stressful 38,5 older / 30,4 younger

20
Forms of support in healthy living expected from
company

• gender influenced the choices
• Additional , comprehensive check ups 29,3 of
  women / 20, 1 men
• Better and safer working conditions - 23,6
  women / 34,8 men
• education influenced the choices
• trainings on coping with stress 2 secondary
  education 18 of university education
• sport activities 11 - 29,6
• ETS free workplaces - 6 - 16

21
Conclusions

• It is worthwhile to assess the needs of the
  particular population before designing the WHP
  intervention in a company some expectations
  result from previous experiences and common
  knowledge the health promoters have to be
  innovative
• Almost 90 of Polish employees expects workplace
  health promotion measures from their company
• It is probable that in some cases people will not
  want to participate no matter how attractive the
  programme is

22
Cocnclusion

• WHP is needed at all ages
• Special programmes for ageing population are not
  required, slight shift in issues emphasised in
  WHP projects in companies with older employees
  would be welcomed

23
Conclusions

• There are no major differences in young and older
  employees expectations concerning forms of WHP
• There are some differences in the issues that
  older and younger employees find attractive
• Half of the adult population is not willing to
  take part in an organised programme additional
  effort is needed in order to gain their interest

24
Thank you!

• www.imp.lodz.pl
• whpp_at_imp.lodz.pl