#0119 Association of organizational factors with knowledge of effectiveness indicators and participation in corporate health and productivity management programs
What Are Organizations in Japan Doing Right When Implementing the National Health Promotion Program?
Many countries in the world are now facing the consequences of having a rapidly aging population. In Japan, the situation is dire enough that older people are increasingly becoming part of the workforce. However, employing older people calls for special measures to promote healthy behaviors and health awareness to not only ensure their safety, but also reduce organizational health costs and sickness leave.
The Japanese government has implemented a policy initiative called ‘the Health and Productivity Management (HPM) program’ to encourage corporations to implement health promotion activities and further invest in their employees’ health. As of 2020, the government checks for adherence to the HPM program through the HPM Survey Sheets, which evaluate corporations in various areas. However, there have been no studies exploring the extent to which each item in the survey is related to actual performance outcomes related to the HPM program.
To shed light on this issue, we conducted a study to examine the relationship that exists (or not) between key items in the HPM Survey Sheets and each company’s knowledge of its status on real indicators of the effectiveness of the HPM program. We also explored which key items were related to employee participation levels in specific HPM program incentives.
These key items in the HPM Survey Sheets were specifically related to organizational factors, and included the existence of written company-wide policies, the inclusion of the HPM program as an item in the agenda of management-level meetings, the presence of full-time medical staff, and the presence of education for middle management on the topics of health maintenance and promotion. On the other hand, the indicators for the company’s knowledge were related to employee’s behaviors and health conditions, whereas the indicators for program participation measured the percentages of employees participating in educational and support programs related to health and good habits, as well as influenza vaccination rates.
We found that, while all organizational factors were related to the company’s knowledge about the effectiveness of HPM implementation, only some were selectively associated with the participation indicators. Whereas previous works did not delve into such level of detail, our study brings useful insight to clarify the individual relationships between organizational factors and the effectiveness of a health promotion program. Overall, we showed that certain organizational factors can increase the effectiveness of programs like the HPM program and strengthen employee participation, which could help secure healthier organizations.
Link to the original journal article:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/1348-9585.12205
Title of the paper:
Association of organizational factors with knowledge of effectiveness indicators and participation in corporate health and productivity management programs
Authors:
Hirosuke Takahashi, Masako Nagata, Tomohisa Nagata, Koji Mori
