Serving the workforce
Article from TÜV SÜD Journal 3/2010
 | envia Mitteldeutsche Energie AG (enviaM) has been practicing model health checkup programs for years. With the help of TÜV SÜD Life Services, it has also put an integrated corporate health management into place. The program is designed for the company's most important capital – its employees. |
All employees should be as healthy when they go home as they were when they came to work.« This is the motto of envia Mitteldeutsche Energie AG, the leading regional energy service provider in eastern Germany that is based in Chemnitz. In 2003, the subsidiary of the RWE Group began to expand its activities in the area of corporate health management beyond the standards for occupational health and safety in the energy industry. »In times when shortages of specialists, economic crisis and demographic change weigh on the labor market and when employees have to deal with increased amounts of work and stress, we are demonstrating that we take care of our employees' health,« says Ralf Hiltenkamp, the Board of Management member who oversees human resources. »After all, we know that our living depends on their ability to work.«
In 2009, the company became the first company in Germany to be awarded the certificate »Occupational Health and Safety under the LS Standard.« In issuing the certificate, TÜV SÜD showed that enviaM does more in terms of health protection than is required by the German Labor Protection Act. The requirements for the certificate were not only legally required health-protection measures, but also regular company prevention programs, including flu shots and colon-cancer screening. The company is a model in terms of its internal organization and its company integration management. Just like every other company, enviaM strives to lower costs related to employee illnesses and absences – after all, each day that an employee is absent from work costs the company an average of €400.
Innovative health project
Working closely and regularly with Dr. Karen Franz, the responsible company physician at TÜV SÜD Life Services, the energy provider developed a comprehensive package of measures that is continuously expanded. With the agreement on »Corporate Health Management« that took effect in 2009, the company committed itself to the goal of establishing health-promoting work conditions, processes and structures as well as encouraging self-initiative among employees. Specific steps including »Check 15«, a screening for cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders; tai-chi-chuan courses; back-conditioning exercises; blood drives; and health weeks were introduced.
With the project »Preventing and Addressing Stress within Expanded Health-Protection Programs,« enviaM surveyed employees to identify resources and stresses that occur on the job. Employees were informed of the results during workshops, and risk- and resource-specific intervention steps were worked out with them. »This is designed to encourage employees to take more self-initiative,« says Elke Schorling, Director of Occupational Safety Management who initiated the project. As a continuous program from the project, the introductory seminar »Healthy Ways of Working Are Everybody's Business« was added to the list of training courses offered by enviaM. The company introduced the stress prevention program together with the Technical University of Dresden and the Occupational Cooperative Energy, Textile, Electric and Media Products.
Far-sighted investments
»The important issue to address in setting up corporate health management is taking an integrated approach, that is, a far-sighted company strategy, showing how occupational health and safety can be expanded to areas that had been neglected in the past,« the company physician Dr. Franz says. Hiltenkamp agrees that this approach should be used: »Our goal continues to be to incorporate employee, health, fire and environmental protection, as an integral component, into all company processes and into technical, economic and social considerations.« In a reflection of this approach, enviaM has positioned corporate health management in the human resources department and created a position – that of strategic health management – for this very purpose. »We realized that we must address this issue in a proactive, far-reaching manner,« Hiltenkamp says. Employees are very receptive to the steps being taken: A new survey found a high level of satisfaction with the company's activities, both in terms of occupational health and safety as well as in terms of the integration of health into the company's mission statement. »We are heading in the right direction,« Hiltenkamp says. »As a result of demographic change, though, we have to pick up the pace. This is an area where we cannot be satisfied with the status quo.«