The organizational benefits of investing in workplace health

Abstract

PurposeA healthy and vital workforce is an asset to any organization. Workplace health management and health promotion are therefore increasingly relevant for organizations. This paper aims to identify the organizational benefits companies strive for, and analyzes the ways companies use and manage data in order to monitor, evaluate and improve the achievement of organizational benefits through workplace health management.Design/methodology/approachA case study was carried out in four frontrunner organizations in health management in The Netherlands. The benefits the companies strived for were systematically investigated, as were the ways in which the companies used and managed their relevant data.FindingsThe organizations had many data that were potentially useful for managing and evaluating the realization of the intended health and business benefits. However, these data were only available and usable in a fragmented manner. As a result, the business impact of health interventions was neither properly evaluated nor consistently managed.Research limitations/implicationsThe research was limited to four frontrunner companies in The Netherlands. The results presented are predominantly qualitative.Practical implicationsSuggestions for improving the management of organizational benefits from workplace health interventions are given here; they were formulated though an iterative process with the companies involved.Originality/valueResearch on the combination of health and business benefits of workplace health management has been rather limited thus far. The present paper provides a complete picture of the benefits strived for by four Dutch frontrunner organizations, as well as the data available to them, which are or could be used for guiding and improving workplace health management.