**2. Health and workplace health promotion**

#### **2.1. Health**

**Keywords:** Ethics, Health, Health‐promoting leadership culture, Management, Lead‐

The implementation of the new legislation on health and safety on work place [1] aims to insure employee's health and safety. The reported‐about research investigates the current situation of the leadership culture, especially concerning the health promotion. Therefore, we first focus on the current research state concerning the role of health and safety at workplace and especially on the attitudes about health promotion and leaders'

Workplace environment covers a crucial part of human life. Therefore, workplaces should be designed in a human‐oriented way, following the tradition since 1950s. Having healthy, satisfied and motivated employees, who enjoy health and safety at workplace, enables positive economic outcomes, increased competitiveness and profitability; it also affects other factors in the business positively. Healthy jobs and workplaces benefit workers/employees, customers

After EU‐OSHA [4], workplace health promotion (WHP) encompasses employers', employees' and society's actions improving the human health and well‐being at work. It integrated the

These activities must be planned and implemented. The key factors therefore include leaders who can form, stimulate and change the work environment substantially. This special part can present the health‐promoting leadership culture (HPLC), which we measured in Slovenian organizations. One should know this culture as the basis to develop special trainings for

The law on health and safety at work was implemented in Slovenia in 2011. On this basis, Slovenian organizations started their workplace health promotion (WPC) programs. The responsibility for WPC is on employers and leaders, i.e., managers on all hierarchical level. For successful implementation of WHP, leaders should lead their employees in a way, supporting their health. The reported‐about research covered the Slovenian leaders' leadership style concerning their employees' health after implementing the said new legislation. We conducted a survey on health‐promoting leadership culture in Slovenian

and shareholders, citizens, society and the state [2, 3].

**•** Encouraging employees' involvement in health‐related activities;

following activities in the defined area: **•** Improving the way work is organized;

**•** Improving the work environment;

**•** Encouraging personal development.

improving leaders' leadership style.

ership, social responsibility, workplace health promotion, work environment

**1. Introduction**

78 Occupational Health

behavior.

Health is fundamental in every person's life. To understand health well, we will first quote some general definitions:

The World Health Organization (WHO) defined in 1947 the concept of health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well‐being and not merely as the absence of disease or infirmity [5]. WHO argues that health care is not only an individual concern but also a concern for the whole society; it is both a private and a social good. Therefore, the environment in which one lives crucially impacts one's health.

Gabrijelčič Blenkuš et al. [6] (summarized after [7]) suggested that good health of the popula‐ tion matters for poverty reduction, economic growth and long‐term development of society. There are four mechanisms for individuals' contributions to the economy in high‐income countries: labor productivity, labor market participation, education and savings and invest‐ ments. Good health increases the likelihood of participation in the labor market, whereas poor health reduces earnings and increases retirement [6, pp. 17–18].

O'Donnell [8] states that health promotion is important because it helps people to discover synergies between their passions and optimal health in order to give them more motivation and support to change their lifestyle. It is about achieving the necessary balance between the physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual health. A combination of learning experiences facilitates changes of lifestyle: it enhances awareness, increases motivation, builds skills, and, most important, creates opportunities to access environments making positive health practices one's easiest choice [8].

#### **2.2. Health and safety at workplace**

Business/production processes can cause accidents in the working process; therefore, safety and health at work matter. It covers protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work.

The European Agency for Safety and Health's Information Bulletin, entitled "The Business Benefits of good occupational Safety and Health" [9], finds organizations aware that they can reduce the number of accidents and occupational diseases with ensuring the health and safety at work.

Health and safety at work impact the organizations' business performance visible inside them. Surveys show that every euro invested in WHP brings the company 2.5–4.8 € by diminishing costs due to absenteeism [10]. Presentism could be added: it diminishes productivity of the ill, but present workers/employees.

Indirect cost for support to early retirees could also be added. So could repairing of equipment that is wrongly used due to poor work of the ill, but present workers/employees. WHP can often prevent these and similar troubles; outcomes can be estimated with opportunity cost methods.

Protection of life, health and work ability of workers is a fundamental task of safety and health at work. Detecting all types and levels of burdens and harms of occupational risks and evaluating how serious the work and health risks are, decisively impacts both on business and employees. Assuring the health of employees is a multidisciplinary activity, which may include physiology, psychology of work, labor pathology and industrial toxicology, assessment of work ability, ecology of work, the epidemiology, ergonomics and working environment, social medicine, hygiene, the legal aspect of comprehensive care staff and others [11, p. 5]. Even more: it should be interdisciplinary to include synergies of the listed activities and attain the requisite holism of approach and requisite wholeness of outcomes of interventions [12].

#### **2.3. Workplace health promotion**

Promotion of health and safety is a planned combination of educational, political, environ‐ mental, organizational and values/culture/ethics/norms‐related mechanisms that support measures and conditions of lives of individuals, groups and communities.

WHP complements occupational safety and health measures as parts of the combined efforts of employers, workers and (inter‐)national authorities to improve the health and well‐being of humans at work. Its definition reads: "the combined efforts of employers, employees and society to improve the health and well‐being of people at work" [13]. It belongs to the most prominent approaches, improving the individual well‐being at work, encouraging health‐ related individual and organizational learning, and creating health‐sustaining work environ‐ ments (for example, see [13]).

WHP programs support prevention efforts, classified as primary (directed at employees that are generally healthy), secondary (directed at individuals already at high risk because of certain lifestyle practices or abnormal biometric values) and tertiary (referred to as disease management, directed at individuals with existing ailments such as asthma, diabetes, cardio‐ vascular disease, cancers, musculo‐skeletal disorders and depression; their aim covers ameliorating the disease or retarding its progression) [14].

This (requisitely) holistic concept incorporates, first, the improvement of the work organization and the working environment; second, the promotion of active participation of all stakeholders in the process; plus third, the encouragement of personal development [13].

It affects the psychological and mental areas, social sphere, facilitating prevention activities and general cognitive and affective outcomes [15, p. 41].

In Slovenia, the concept of the workplace‐health promoting is relatively recent. It resulted from the concept of WHP, which has significantly evolved since becoming prominent in the 1970s. Then, several companies in some European countries showed great enthusiasm in start‐up projects to humanize the world of work; but they quickly abandoned these endeavors which poorly matched corporate (short‐term and narrowly defined?) interests. In the late 1980s, workplace health and safety mattered again, primarily due to the European Commission's Framework Directive on health and safety [16]. It reorientated occupational safety and health in Europe [17].

Interest in WHP has grown considerably at the national and supra‐national levels in Europe over the past 5 years. This trend can be related to the far‐reaching economic and social changes that are taking place in the EU member states due, in part, to increasing international compe‐ tition [18].

Companies can improve their safety and health at work with their own activities. If they adopt and further promote the legislation of safety and health at work, they improve work safety (and reduce their visible and opportunity costs, too).

In recent years, the attention to ensuring safety and health at work in the so‐called green workplaces has grown. European Union is trying to coordinate economic growth with the need to protect the environment. To reach this, one shall lower the emissions of greenhouse gasses, raise energetic efficiency, stimulate renewable sources of energy and lower the amount of waste produced. This was the basis for creating green workplaces, encouraging humans towards preserving and restoring their environment. Implementing of these goals can improve safety and well‐being of workers too [19, p. 5].

EU wants to protect the workers of all its member states against threatening dangers at work in every workplace.

In Slovenia, the area of promotion of health and safety at work is legally defined. In 2011, the amendments to the "Act on occupational safety and health" added the area of health promotion and management of psychosocial risks in the workplace. ZVZD‐1 to the square of 6 and Article 32 stipulates employers to plan and implement health promotion in the workplace, and to provide the necessary means and method of monitoring its implementation [20, pp. 32, 53]. Evidently, the law is being realized [21].

#### **2.4. WHP models and approaches**

Indirect cost for support to early retirees could also be added. So could repairing of equipment that is wrongly used due to poor work of the ill, but present workers/employees. WHP can often prevent these and similar troubles; outcomes can be estimated with opportunity cost

Protection of life, health and work ability of workers is a fundamental task of safety and health at work. Detecting all types and levels of burdens and harms of occupational risks and evaluating how serious the work and health risks are, decisively impacts both on business and employees. Assuring the health of employees is a multidisciplinary activity, which may include physiology, psychology of work, labor pathology and industrial toxicology, assessment of work ability, ecology of work, the epidemiology, ergonomics and working environment, social medicine, hygiene, the legal aspect of comprehensive care staff and others [11, p. 5]. Even more: it should be interdisciplinary to include synergies of the listed activities and attain the requisite

Promotion of health and safety is a planned combination of educational, political, environ‐ mental, organizational and values/culture/ethics/norms‐related mechanisms that support

WHP complements occupational safety and health measures as parts of the combined efforts of employers, workers and (inter‐)national authorities to improve the health and well‐being of humans at work. Its definition reads: "the combined efforts of employers, employees and society to improve the health and well‐being of people at work" [13]. It belongs to the most prominent approaches, improving the individual well‐being at work, encouraging health‐ related individual and organizational learning, and creating health‐sustaining work environ‐

WHP programs support prevention efforts, classified as primary (directed at employees that are generally healthy), secondary (directed at individuals already at high risk because of certain lifestyle practices or abnormal biometric values) and tertiary (referred to as disease management, directed at individuals with existing ailments such as asthma, diabetes, cardio‐ vascular disease, cancers, musculo‐skeletal disorders and depression; their aim covers

This (requisitely) holistic concept incorporates, first, the improvement of the work organization and the working environment; second, the promotion of active participation of all stakeholders

It affects the psychological and mental areas, social sphere, facilitating prevention activities

In Slovenia, the concept of the workplace‐health promoting is relatively recent. It resulted from the concept of WHP, which has significantly evolved since becoming prominent in the 1970s. Then, several companies in some European countries showed great enthusiasm in start‐up projects to humanize the world of work; but they quickly abandoned these endeavors which

in the process; plus third, the encouragement of personal development [13].

holism of approach and requisite wholeness of outcomes of interventions [12].

measures and conditions of lives of individuals, groups and communities.

ameliorating the disease or retarding its progression) [14].

and general cognitive and affective outcomes [15, p. 41].

methods.

80 Occupational Health

**2.3. Workplace health promotion**

ments (for example, see [13]).

Nowadays, there are several different models for implementing WHP. Even though health promotion programs are becoming more wide‐spread, they are just programs, mainly focusing on individual health behaviors rather than working conditions. Reducing employee health risk requires innovations in job design, workplace culture, organizational systems and manage‐ ment practices [22].

The most common approach introduces the health circles. They help occupational safety and health (OSH) professionals and leaders in private enterprises, public organizations and authorities. Health circles can be implemented by dividing the process into six successive phases [22]: first, prerequisites (consensus, project group); second, preparation (needs analysis, expert discussion); third, practiced interventions based on needs analysis; fourth, presentation of results to project group and staff; fifth, implementation of measures; sixth, evaluation by circle participants, staff and management, including company documents.

The "management circle" enables continual improvement. Relating to a circle should demon‐ strate that the end of one activity leads to the beginning of another activity. Health management therefore becomes a permanent organizational process. The implementation of the health circles lasts about 15 months.

These efforts can be called contributions to socially responsible business and enjoy support from social responsibility.
