WORKHEALTH - European Network For Workplace Health

The European Network for Workplace Health Promotion established in 1996 and funded by the European Commission, has national contact offices in 28 countries. It is an informal network of national institutes for occupational safety and health, public health, health promotion, and statutory social insurance institutions. Its objective is to contribute to improving health and well-being in the workplace and reduce the impact of work-related ill health in the European workforce. Participates in a number of workplace health promotion initiatives on a variety of topics, including spreading good workplace health in Eastern European countries and healthy work in an aging Europe .

Vision and mission

ENWHP members work together towards the vision “healthy employees in healthy organizations” and are committed to developing and promoting good health practices in the workplace, which in turn contributes to a high level of health protection and development. sustainable economic and social development in Europe.

In the Luxembourg Declaration on WHP in Europe in 1997 a basic consensus on common goals, vision and mission was developed and established.
Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) is the combined effort of employers, employees and society to improve the health and well-being of people at work.
This can be achieved through a combination of:

  • improve work organization and work environment
  • promoting active participation
  • promoting personal development.
  • (Luxembourg Declaration 1997)

Joint Initiatives

Between 1996 and today, the ENWHP has successfully carried out the following joint European initiatives:

European Project "Factors of Success and Quality of Health Promotion at Work"
European Project ”Promotion of Health at Work in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)”
European Project "Promotion of Occupational Health in the Public Administration Sector"
Add initiatives 4th and 5th

Achievements

Building on the common understanding of workplace health promotion, ENWHP initiatives across Europe have achieved the following:

  • The ENWHP has compiled a European Documentation of quality criteria and good practices for public and private sector companies. 66 models of good practice have been identified among large companies, 48 ​​among SMEs and 34 in the public administration sector.
  • The ENWHP carried out an analysis of successful strategies to improve the dissemination of good health practices in the workplace, which has formed the basis for a set of policy advice documents and technical reports on the current state of Health Promotion. Occupational Health in SMEs and public administrations.
  • The ENWHP helped market and communicate WHP good practices and new strategies at national and European level. Through European conferences in Bonn (1999), Lisbon (2001), Barcelona (2002) and Dublin (2004) and other activities, key stakeholders at European and national level were successfully convinced to include WHP in their agenda and support the promotion of strategies that facilitate the future dissemination of WHP good practices at the company level.
  • The ENWHP has supported the development of national support infrastructures for the dissemination of good practice in workplace health promotion by organizing national forums for WHP in several participating countries.
  • In order to strengthen a wider implementation of good practice, the network developed a European toolbox for effective instruments and tools that includes a collection of key arguments for investments in WHP (business case).
  • The network also addressed the impacts of demographic change on the world of work and identified numerous WHP best practice models that can help develop healthier workplaces for an aging workforce.

Current Initiatives

Currently, the network is implementing a major initiative to support the integration of the new Member States in the operations of the network. Under the title "Dragonfly", the Polish member organization is leading a project that analyzes the specific framework conditions for new countries in the fields of workplace health promotion. In addition, the network has been organizing a series of stakeholder meetings in the new countries in an attempt to invite as many stakeholders as possible to become actively involved in the process of joint learning and dissemination of good practice.

In addition, ENWHP also supports the initiative organized by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health to address future policy and strategy challenges in