The Health Promoter - Essay Example

The Health Promoter Introduction Healthcare promotion has become an important topic of discussion in most quarters of Bristol public discussion (Shannon, Robson and Sale, 2001). To achieve such anticipated high levels of healthcare, it is imminent on organisational heads and human resource personnel to put in place realistic result oriented policies to rejuvenate the health status of their employees and workers. It is in line with this that the present research is being conducted. The research is, therefore, being conducted under the topic of “Modern interventions towards health promotion in the United Kingdom”. The research shall be limited to the MGD Grand Construction Limited, a construction firm in the heart of London. This construction firm has been selected for data collection by the use of a questionnaire because there are several strenuous physical activities involved in their daily duties. Company’s views, attitudes and policies As the name suggests, the MGD Grand Construction is a construction firm dedicated purposely for industrial and heavy duty construction. The company’s view is therefore shifted towards the promotion of the industrialisation of the United Kingdom economy through their roles in construction. As part of the mission and vision statement of the company, the company has a value of helping in increasing the number of industries, factories and institutions in the United Kingdom through the provision of affordable but quality buildings and structures. As part of a long term policy by the company, MGD Grand Construction is strongly committed towards the promotion of health of its workers. This is because the company believes in a simple philosophy that it takes a healthy worker to promote productivity (Sparks, Faragher, and Cooper, 2001). Critical analysis of the views, attitudes and policies of the Company Specific Promotional Policies Members of the company administration and management were given questionnaires that sought to find out from them some of the major policies that have put in place over the last five years in their bid to promote the health of their workers. Critical analyses of the questionnaire given to the management and staff of the company shows that the company has adopted a three-tier health promotion policy. These are dubbed time-body-money. On the first tier, the company makes allocation of time to workers within which time they are expected to make personal and collective plans to improve their health. Some of these include vacations, holidays and time off their regular activities. Such times of rest are thought of to be very important technique for ensuring that workers are not overstretched physically and overstressed mentally (The Luxemburg Declaration, 1997). On the second tier, there is a collective schedule when all members on the staff with their management visit the gymnasium and other health promotional centres to undertake physical body exercises. Some of the places that are visited apart from the gymnasium for body exercises are the swimming pool, football field and athletics park (Naidoo and Wills 2000). On the final tier, the management and staff are given monetary allowances to help them pursue disease related health risks. Common among such monetary allowances is the funding of hospital bills and provision of health insurance (Menckel and Österblom, 2004). Impact of Health Promotion Policies on Staff The researcher took the pain to interview as many workers of the company as possible. This interview was necessitated in order to give the researcher first hand information on the impact of the health promotion policies put in place by management on their general well-being and delivery at work. It was also an attempt by the researcher to find from workers if they appreciated the three-tier policy dubbed time-body-money as a policy that covered their entire health needs for the kind of work they do. The line of data collected pointed to the fact that the staff were highly appreciative of the three-tier policy and considered it useful in meeting their personal and organisational needs as field constructors. The data analysis also revealed that the workers were always highly involved in the health promotion policies. Further data also showed that the workers could testify of personal transformation in their health status since the three-tier health promotion policy was introduced. This was because most of them had started recording lesser visits to the hospital. In terms of productivity and work output, they testified that their individual performances had improved tremendously over the past five years when the health promotion policy was introduced (Furnham, 1997). Impact of Health Promotion Policy on Company Once a health promotion policy is put in place, it is very important to monitor the effect that such a policy has on the personal well-being of workers (Bartolo and Furlonger, 2000). This is a way of ensuring that there is value for the resources vested into the policy. Due to this, the researcher collected data from the management of the company on the positive assessments they can make of the company since the health promotion policy was introduced as well as the challenges they have faced in continuing with the policy. In the first place, records of the company’s end of year financial cash book proved that the company started recording steady growth in revenue right from the first year of implementation of the health promotion policy. This trend is in conformity with the studies conducted by (Catford, 1997) who posited that when management makes conscious efforts to improve the health of their workers, the will be a direct positive impact on their financial returns. On the challenges, a number of factors were enumerated by the management. They claimed that at first, the board was not willing to give so much time out to the staff as a means of promoting rest. The board thought it was going to be a waste of time but that was not so. Again, the sourcing of funds to start off the health promotion policy was very difficult. It is however refreshing to conclude on the note that the investment that was done did not turn out to be a waste but has squarely been yielded back into the company (Arvonen, 1995). Conclusions The data collection exercise has been very useful in coming out with some of the salient achievements that have been recorded by the company since it started implementing some of its long and short term strategic plans. The major challenges associated with general well-being of workers have also been outlined. It is however good to note that such challenges have turned out to be worthwhile in the development and growth of the company. Finally, the research has been very instrumental in laying bare some of the major plans that management of the company has for future implementation. It can, therefore, be concluded that though a lot of successes have been achieved so far, there remains a lot more that management of MGD Grand Construction can do to champion improved health of their staff. References Arvonen, J. (1995). Leadership behaviour and co-worker health - a study in process industry. Department of Psychology, Stockholm University. Bartolo, K. & Furlonger, B. (2000). Leadership and job satisfaction among aviation fire fighters in Australia. Journal of Managerial Psychology. 15:1, 87-97. Catford, J. (1997). Developing leadership for health: our biggest blindspot. Health Promotion International.12:1, 1-4. Furnham, A. (1997). The Psychology of behaviour of work. The individual in the organisation. Hove East Sussex: Psychology Press. Menckel, E. & Österblom, L. (2004). Leadership behaviour and co-worker health - a study in process industry. Johansson, B. and Frick, K. Lund: Student litterateur. pp 213-229. Naidoo, J. & Wills J. (2000). Health Promotion, Foundations for Practice. Second Edition. Bailliére Tindall: Royal College of Nursing. Nerell, G. & Sandberg, C. G. (1994). Leadership in Health Administration. Stockholm: Accra. Shannon, H.S., Robson, L.S. & Sale, J.E.M. (2001). Creating Safer and Healthier Workplaces: Role of Organisational Factors and Job characteristics. American Journal of industrial Medicine. 40, 319-334. Sparks, K., Faragher, B. & Cooper, L.C. (2001). Well-being and occupational health in the 21st century workplace. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.74, 489-509. The Luxemburg Declaration on Workplace Health Promotion in the European Union. (1997). Read More