A truly successful workplace health program will initially focus on the health status of employees and their interests (which aren't always the same thing). But how does the company will discover how healthy and productive they are?

More and more progressive companies are using a Health Risk Appraisal (or HRA) like Healthworks' MyHealthCheck™ to collect information on the health and risk factors of employees. Employees then know their health risk status and the company has a record of health trends in the organisation, allowing for a more tailored approach to the wellness program. A good first step!

A corporate focused HRA should include:

• Employee Health Status – the HRA should provide feedback for employers and employees on health domains such as eating, exercise, stress, sleeping etc. to allow group/ site specific wellness program to be tailored
• Recommendations - the HRA should provide the employee with a report that includes tailored behaviour change recommendations and health tips to facilitate improvement
• Business Case – the HRA should include an internationally recognised tool to measure return on investment (ROI) that links a companies levels of presenteeism and absenteeism to their investment in a corporate wellness program. Warm and fuzzy feelings are great but someone somewhere is going to want to know the bottom line. So track needs to be kept of what benefits the wellness program has proved the company - in a monetary sense.
• Site/Group Comparison – the HRA should allow the data to be segmented by company sites or work groups to determine specific concerns and appropriate interventions to each group. One site may have indicated an overall requirement for more smoking cessation programs, while another may benefit more from weight management seminars.
• Accessibility & Availability – the HRA should be easy to deliver and should not be too intimidatingly long! It should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete.
• Measurable – the HRA should allow for pre/post comparison and analysis for both the employee and the employer, allowing the generation of a Corporate Summary Report for the employer.
• Customisable – ideally the HRA would allow a company to add additional company specific questions to provide more insight into their own health environment.

Healthworks can assist you in all aspects of your worksite wellness program. In particular, we have available:

We can also conduct an Employee Interest Survey and present you with a report on the data collected, and offer professional advice on the tailoring of your workplace wellness program.

Interested? Contact us for more information.

Ask us for a trial username and password and see how MyHealthCheck™ works for yourself.

We're having a sale on current stock at the moment, so pop on by and check out how much wallspace you can cover with your Health and Safety message.

Well actually no. While most things in an average office don't create a noise level that is considered damaging (that's 85 decibels or above, though some studies put it lower), noise pollution is generally a problem once the noise level is greater than 55 decibels. Selected studies show that approximately 35 to 40% of workers in office settings find noise levels from 55 to 60 decibels to be very irritating. If the noise is source is continuous, the threshold level for tolerable noise levels amongst office workers actually becomes lower than 55 decibels. So a photocopier in heavy use (usually that's about 65 decibels) is probably best put as far away from staff as possible.

And of course, if you're tempted to 'drown out' the noise by listening to your iPod on 'loud', then you really are in danger of damaging your hearing.

Other hearing loss causes include chemicals, injury, drugs and disease, the first two of which may occur in your workplace.

As the last week in August is Hearing Awareness Week (22nd-28th), consider what you can do for hearing awareness in your workplace.

Healthworks can provide:

• Booklets on Hearing Safety (and on other subjects)
• Hearing Checks