SB: I’m basically responsible for all components of the healthy workplace program. We use criterion to determine whether or not an organization is planning or developing healthy workplace strategies, so that is part of my job—making sure that organizations are aware that we offer criterion for a healthy workplace, and then helping train them in terms of understanding what that criterion is all about.
WW: How does the training and certification process work?
SB: The certification process has been developed to be progressive, so organizations that are just starting out have a roadmap to follow. The first level is getting commitment from senior management and making sure the healthy workplace strategy is connected to and helping to achieve the organization’s business objectives. The second level involves planning and making sure you have a solid plan based on the needs and interests of the employee population. The third level involves the implementation and collection of data, and showing the results of implementing the program. Finally, the fourth level is about sustainability: making sure you keep a focus on a healthy workplace—that you’re not just looking at it as a quick fix, but as a long-term advantage. We help organizations achieve each of these four levels, and when you achieve a level four, you are eligible to receive a Canada Award of Excellence, the premier award we offer.
WW: Have many organizations in Canada achieved a level four?
SB: More than 300 organizations have won Canada Awards of Excellence, so they’ve reached at least a level four and they try to sustain that. There are large organizations and small ones, and even some entrepreneurial family businesses. One of our winners at our October [2006] summit was a three-person business—a husband-and-wife team plus one employee. A lot of times people think workplace health is only for large corporations, but it’s not: we have a small-business model, a hospital model, a public sector model—so it’s very diverse.
WW: How does NQI define a healthy workplace?
SB: It’s really looking at the organization as a whole and focusing on three elements. One element is the lifestyle practices of employees, and making sure employees are healthy and that organizations encourage and support their efforts to maintain good health. Another element is involvement in occupational-health-and-safety practices and policies. Those are mostly legislated and reactive, whereas the healthy-lifestyle practices are proactive and preventive.
The third element is the workplace culture, and that deals with the social elements of a workplace, such as employee satisfaction, work-life balance, work stress and how to better manage these things.
WW: How are you working with employers to develop this framework?
SB: Sometimes organizations have a lot of healthy workplace programs in place, but they aren’t particularly well integrated or strategic. Many employers offer a variety of individual events, but they haven’t taken a strategic approach—it’s more a smorgasbord of activity. If the CEO of a company is a big triathlon participant, the organization might think it should get employees to be interested in running races, but that may not be what the majority of the employee population wants or needs. So we encourage organizations to engage employees in program planning and give them the opportunity to offer input through healthy-workplace surveys or by sitting on committees.
WW: Do you recommend that organizations create a wellness committee?
SB: That’s one thing we do recommend. Organizations should get a representative group together to provide advice and input and to help determine some of the barriers to creating a healthy workplace. The committee individuals should take information back to their groups, encourage employee participation in workplace programs, and make sure people know about it.
WW: What plans do you have for the NQI over the next year?
SB: I’d like to develop training modules that will help organizations with the “how-to” part: how to distribute a needs assessment, how to analyze results from a survey, how to develop a healthy-workplace plan. I want to be able to help them do the actual work involved in achieving NQI certification. Along with that, I’d like to develop a resource kit for small businesses to help them get more involved, because they don’t have the same financial resources that larger organizations do. Sometimes they find it difficult to provide the required resources, so if I can develop and negotiate that type of thing to service providers, we can offer that to our members.
Vawn Himmelsbach is a Toronto-based freelance writer.
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