New tool helps companies improve workplace health services
The Workplace Health Facility Guidelines and Management Benchmarks offer multi-national corporations, their supplier companies, and their partners a roadmap for continual improvement of workplace health education and services.
The health of women and men workers is usually viewed through the lens of occupational health and safety compliance. Yet, worker health – beyond occupation health and safety – is too often a blind spot for workplace management in lower-income countries. And as more young women join the global workforce, their specific health needs are often poorly understood and overlooked, including reproductive health and family planning.
The guidelines address three areas essential to meeting workers’ health needs and accepted health standards:
- Infirmary-level good practices
- Management systems and oversight
- Company leadership
Implementing good health practices in most aspects requires basic management skills, not a medical degree. The guidelines provide managers the wherewithal to oversee workplace health functions and define expectations for health providers – with minimal cost and potentially high returns.
The guidelines also build on international efforts to spur corporate attention to worker health and development, including the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles and the World Health Organization’s Healthy Workplaces model. They are also relevant to implementing the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
The tool is targeted to:
- Brands and retailers (corporate sustainability and health policies as well as supplier guidelines and contractual obligations)
- Workplace Managers (human resources, compliance and others with responsibility for personnel, health and safety, and management systems)
- NGOs (implementers of workplace health programs)
The guidelines come with a scorecard and other support materials that enable workplaces to assess their situation (internally or with an external partner) and identify areas for improvement.