Abstract
The Academy for Educational Development (AED) held a long-term, multi-country, multi-continent program funded by the United States Department of Labor (USDOL). It aimed to help both employees and employers deal with the impacts of the increase in the spread of human immunodeficiency virus infection/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) in the various parts of the world. The focus of this program was to work in the private sector to ameliorate the negative impacts of HIV/AIDS in the workplace. Measuring employees’ and employers’ attitudes towards people working with HIV/AIDS as part of early interventions was the key to the project success. AED has subsequently been acquired by Family Health International, to create FHI 360, which also does a significant amount of work with people living with HIV/AIDS. The project has ended but the survey results, while analyzed in 2006, continue to be relevant for practitioners planning to implement similar activities through corporate- and donor-funded health in the workplace initiatives. Both co-authors now work at Creative Associates International. Key words: HIV/AIDS, health in the workplace, absenteeism, labor turnover, workplace discrimination, workplace stigmatization, behavior change communication.
Highlights
With HIV/AIDS most often affecting adults in their productive and reproductive prime, the business community has recognized its ethical responsibility and economic interest in protecting its most valued asset – its workforce
While these results demonstrate a positive change, they demonstrate that a sizable portion of employees still believe that workplace discrimination against persons living with HIV/ AIDS (PLWHA) is possible despite a new non-discriminatory policy
While the SMARTWork program demonstrated that it can impact employees in several positive ways, considerably more can be done by workplace programs
Summary
With HIV/AIDS most often affecting adults in their productive and reproductive prime, the business community has recognized its ethical responsibility and economic interest in protecting its most valued asset – its workforce. Employers, especially those in countries where the disease has been most devastating, are acutely aware of the direct financial and indirect social costs of the epidemic; at a minimum the business community has recognized the common good of having a healthy workforce. Some early projects led in the effort to get the corporate sector involved in helping to change peoples’ behaviors through workplace initiatives – and had success doing so. The international HIV/AIDS workplace program SMARTWork – Strategically Managing AIDS
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