Measuring the effectiveness of workplace health management programs: An Australian example

The workplace can provide opportunities to support workers in adopting and sustaining health enhancing behaviours. Health promotion programs based at the workplace need not only to achieve this goal but also the continuing support of the employers. This can best be achieved by demonstrating a return on their investment. The aim of this study therefore was to develop an integrated workplace health management program which could be associated with measurable outcomes related to benefitting the institution's "bottom line". This program was based in a metropolitan surgical hospital in Melbourne, Australia from 2006 to 2010 with a total workforce of 1400 employees aged 18-74 years (86% female 14% male), The program followed two key principles of 1) building safe and familiar support networks in order to build a workplace culture where all the workers felt valued. 2) Providing time for individual workers to focus on themselves as a means to achieve early intervention and management of injuries. Insurance data generated by the Workers Compensation Authority identified the following 'bottom line' benefits over three years: injury management costs reduced by 56%; number of compensation Injury claims dropped by 46%; time to return to work post injury reduced by 68%, and; a reduction. in premiums of 43% achieved over a six-year period. Insurers world-wide calculate workers' compensation insurance premiums on injury claims history. It is concluded that such data as these can offer a reliable and 'persuasive' measure of health and injury outcomes, in workplace interventions of this nature.