Corporate Culture Based on Partnership and Company Health Policy

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Enterprise for Health

Corporate Culture Based on Partnership
and Company Health Policy

wwww.enterprise-for-health.org
Enterprise for Health

Corporate
and Company
What role do corporate cultures and company health policies play
regarding a company’s capacity for innovation and change in the era
of the knowledge society? What are the distinguishing features of
corporate cultures based on partnership and what creative leeway do
they provide in a practical corporate context? What contribution does
a company health policy make to the competitiveness of the enterprise
and to sustainable social development? What are the values that will
determine tomorrow’s working world and how can companies respond
to the challenges facing the relationship of work and health that are
already emerging?

These and similar questions were at the focus of a meeting of a group
of European companies jointly initiated in Germany in early 2001 by
the Bertelsmann Foundation and the Federal Association of Company
Health Funds (BKK). Under the chairmanship of EfH President Rita
Süssmuth the company representatives from the areas of personnel,
social affairs and occupational safety and health came together in
May 2001 to discuss the future perspectives of a corporate culture
based on partnership and a dedicated company health policy.
Culture Based on Partnership
Health Policy
Corporate culture: buzz word, myth or Does corporate culture make you healthy? health risks and hence targets the single
reality? Already the very values and convictions employee but should, according to
The culture of a company is shaped by the of a company can promote health at the Eberhard Ulich and Jean-Francois Caillard,
written, but above all by the practically place of work if and when work is inter- rather be complemented by measures that
lived rules for cooperation within the com- preted as a source of health. However, focus on the organisation of work. At the
pany as well as for relations to the outside many companies have got into the habit very centre of any such effort to design
world like customers, suppliers or other of tending to associate work with disease work processes that promote the health
companies. The differences between cor- and of concentrating almost exclusively on and personality of the individual must be
porate cultures are sometimes reflected in the prevention of accidents, occupational the endeavour to create as holistic a task
the symbols used or in so-called artefacts diseases and work-induced ailments. as possible to give the individual staff
like the dress code, the architecture or the member or the work group a maximum
language used. Even income distribution indirectly influ- of autonomy.
ences health-related matters at the place
Eberhard Ulich (the scientific head of EfH) of work and reflects the corporate culture.
outlines four areas of activity in which The smaller the differences in income
corporate culture finds expression and can distribution the greater will be the extent
be influenced: the values and basic con- of the perceived feeling of belonging to-
victions, the visions and role models, the gether in a company. In addition, studies
forms of financial participation and in- from the USA have shown that the eco-
come distribution, and the design and or- nomically most successful companies of
ganisation of work. the past few decades as measured by the
increase in shareholder value also turn
Jean-Francois Caillard (scientific advisor to out to be distinguished by relatively small
EfH) points to the ethical dimension of the differences in income distribution.
discussion on corporate culture. This is
characterized by two poles. At the one end A corporate culture based on partnership
of the spectrum there is the paradigm of can be particularly valuable in turning
the personal responsibility of every indi- work into a source of health by way of the
vidual for his living conditions and thus design and organisation of work. The tra-
also for his health. At the other end is the ditional approach in occupational safety
paradigm of solidarity emphasising the and health, on the other hand, is frequent-
responsibility of the community. ly still geared to reducing individual
Experience from corporate
Primarily at the initiative of the founder The company supports the implementa- The Norwegian manufacturer of office
of the company, Reinhard Mohn, the tion of the corporate objectives in the area furniture HÅG has gained some very posi-
Bertelsmann media corporation began of in-company partnership by means of a tive experience with the development of a
to develop a corporate culture based on number of instruments. These include culture of trust based on shared values.
partnership as far back as in the 50th and individual talks with staff, quarterly talks The starting point was an economic crisis
60th. It became part and parcel of the at the place of work (where elected labour as well as the conviction that highly quali-
corporate constitution and – according to representatives can make suggestions con- fied staff could only be gained and retained
Franz Netta – forms the basis of the health cerning proposed investments and other by HÅG through a visible and living
policy activities of the company. The no- changes), the January Talk where superi- employee focus. Corporate culture – says
tion of partnership includes such crucial ors face assessment by their staff, and an Kirsti Vandraas – is not an academic sub-
elements as mutual information of employ- employee survey that is conducted world- ject but a matter of common sense and
ees and an open exchange of opinions, the wide. At the moment Bertelsmann is devel- “good manners”. Their growing number of
creation of a personal scope for develop- oping a procedure by which the degree staff had been the reason for the company
ment, the involvement of staff in corporate of implementation of important dimen- to give more formalised support to the
decision-making processes, the assurance sions of the corporate culture is integrated development of values and their imple-
of material justice and the socially respon- into the formal reporting system. In addi- mentation into corporate practice. To this
sible actions of the company. Special tion to important personnel and social po- end the five HÅG values (security & care,
challenges emerge – reports Franz Netta – licy data (like sickness rate, staff turnover initiative & commitment, customer focus,
as a result of the decentralised structure and standard-of-living indicators) the innovation, responsibility & loyalty) are
of the group with some 300 independent “Cultural Report” is based on the degree translated step by step into concrete im-
profit centres and the necessary integra- of implementation of the instruments and provements in all parts of the company.
tion of different corporate cultures in the the assessment by employees based on The successful outcomes are then com-
course of mergers and acquisitions. the data analysis of the results of the bined with the results of an employee sur-
employee survey. vey (climate analysis) conducted annually.
The results of the climate analysis form
the basis for target agreements with the
executive staff.
practice
The German Rewe company is a service Zakład Energetyczny is a utility company Caixa Geral de Depósitos CGD is the
provider with the emphasis in its business in Poland with headquarters in Toruń largest financial group in Portugal with
activities on trading and tourism and a where the company employs some 1.400 552 branches in Portugal and 400 branches
European workforce of more than 240.000 staff. Until 1993 Zakład Energetyczny was abroad. It employs 9.552 staff members of
employees. The palette of its companies part of the national power company and which 42% are female. The best example of
ranges from numerous micro-enterprises was then converted into a stock corpora- its partnership culture are the Social Ser-
all the way to some very large logistics tion. At the moment – explains Wieslaw vices Department. It is an institution with
centres. For more than a decade the com- Szurmiej – the company is looking for its own legal statute, having administrative
pany has been actively involved in in-com- investors. Occupational safety and health and financial autonomy. It is managed by
pany health promotion on the basis of reg- enjoys a high level of priority in the com- representatives of the employees and has
ular corporate health audits. In a whole pany well exceeding the national mini- responsibility for assisting about 45.000
series of health circles numerous improve- mum standards, according to Wieslaw members (employees and families) during
ments in working conditions could be de- Szurmiej. In comparison with companies illness / general health assistance, sports,
veloped in cooperation with the employ- in Western Europe the development of a recreational / cultural activities. Its health
ees. As a result of these activities – says corporate culture based on partnership is policy currently concentrates on well be-
Dieter Steinborn – accident figures could still very much in its infancy. A major ing with a special focus on psycho-social
be halved in only a few years. Among the incentive for a stronger culture of involve- pressure and physical working conditions.
priorities of the company’s health and so- ment and participation is provided by the Analysing the causes of time absent of
cial policy are the optimisation of the val- background conditions demanded by the long-term ill employees has, so Manuela
ue chain under economic, ecological and economy. Neto, clearly indicated psycho-social fac-
humane aspects, the improvement of secu- tors of pressure for two thirds of the
rity in the stores and the integration of er- concerned employees. The Occupational
gonomic and health considerations in the Medicine Service reacted with measures
investment decisions of the company. In in three priority areas: stress management,
the future – Dieter Steinborn points out – physical exercise, and helping people to
the role of the individual health measures give up smoking. In order to be able to
and the personal responsibility taken by evaluate the need and the pressures of the
the employee will get more and more employees concerning psycho-social pres-
important. This will pose major challenges sures, a company-wide staff survey was
to Rewe in view of their large number of carried out.
part-time employees.
Ruhrgas AG, one of the leading natural gas GlaxoSmithKline GSK, a world-wide operat- Alcoa-Köfém, a 100 per cent subsidiary
trading companies in Europe, relies on ing pharmaceutical and healthcare company, of the aluminium producer Alcoa Inc., in-
an employee-centred corporate culture in employing over 100.000 people. In the UK troduced an employee-oriented production
view of the changing competitive situation alone, GSK has 23 sites. The Employee and management system in a comparative-
in the national and European markets. Health Management Department co-ordi- ly short period of time. Alcoa-Köfém offers
This, according to the report by Carl- Sylvius nates GSK’s Occupational Health, Employee – so Istvan Miniska – possibilities of com-
von Falkenhausen, requires not so much a Health Support and Resilience work. The petitive earnings and a relatively high
written outline of corporate values as the merger of Glaxo Wellcome and Smith Kline employment security. According to Istvan
consistent implementation of a form of Beecham allowed a review of both legacy Miniska the corporate values and objec-
dealing with each other in day-to-day work companies’ approaches to health in the tives promote worker participation and
firmly based on principles of partnership. workplace and has afforded the opportunity form the basis for an active occupational
Under the motto “Focus on People” the for new and innovative work. GlaxoSmith- safety and health policy within the compa-
human resources management at Ruhrgas Kline’s Mission is to improve the quality of ny. The company is also involved at the
AG has pooled a number of different mea- human life by enabling people to do more, communal level, cooperating with differ-
sures designed to bring about a continu- feel better and live longer. There is also an ent city establishments and especially
ous and sustainable improvement of the emphasis on working towards building a cor- supporting local authority environmental
corporate culture based on partnership. porate culture which promotes personal and protection programs.
The project activities offered support the organisational resilience. Personal resilience
personal health of the employee and pro- is characterised by a positive, focused, flexi-
mote employee-oriented management and ble, organised and proactive attitude in the
communications behaviour as well as context of work life balance, physical health
profit sharing with the employees. The and mental well being. Organisational inter-
Ruhrgas AG offers its employees numerous ventions, in areas such as work practices,
supportive measures to achieve a favoura- management behaviour and work environ-
ble work-life-balance. These measures ment, reduce barriers and enable positive
include flexible working hours and provi- health outcomes and sustainable organisa-
sion of day-care and emergency services tional effectiveness. GSK is placing con-
for children. siderable emphasis on the importance of a
healthy work life balance. Effective use of
population health measures to identify prior-
ities and drive targeted interventions is a
key to enhancing health and well being. As
a means of identifying health needs, GSK
uses a health risk appraisal tool that is of-
fered to all GSK staff. With these aggregate
health profiles, targeted high-
risk interventions are devel-
oped and implemented.
Some examples include
smoking cessation, weight
management and pysical
activity interventions. Im-
plementation on the spot is
accompanied by Health Im-
provement Teams in which
all parties concerned coope-
rate.
Future challenges to partnership and
health in the working world.
On the basis of the extensive exchange of experience the European network “Enterprise
for Health” has identified the following topics for its future work. At the same time
they mark important challenges and milestones on the way to creating a corporate
culture based on partnership and an in-company health policy.

The contribution of culture and health to Simultaneous focus on “employee be- Designing tomorrow’s working world today
economic success haviour” and “conditions” The changes in the working world generate
A corporate culture based on partnership Health-promoting behaviour on the part new topics and challenges that EfH will
and a health policy coordinated with it of staff can only develop in the context of take up in the future. These include, for
can currently only be found in very few health-promoting working and living con- example, the need for new forms of work
companies in Europe. The insight that ditions. The EfH members therefore share organisation to account for the increasing
investments in industrial partnership and the view that companies should first cre- number of older employees, health-pro-
health constitute a contribution to value ate the prerequisites for health-promoting moting personnel management, striking
creation and social development is as yet employee behaviour especially by way of the right balance between work and pri-
insufficiently developed in many corporate a personality-promoting design and organ- vate life (Work Life Balance) as well as the
decision-makers. Experience from the EfH isation of the work processes based on necessity to respond to the needs of differ-
member companies illustrates that there a culture of trust and partnership. New ent groups of employees (heterogeneous
are indeed identifiable and quantifiable forms of work and organisation create workforces in terms of age, gender, natio-
correlations between employee motivation, new stresses particularly in the psycho- nality, etc.). Added to this must be chal-
customer satisfaction and the economic logical field while the old stresses caused lenges resulting from mergers and acqui-
indicators for the development of produc- by work and the environment are still sitions as well as the resulting restructur-
tivity and profitability. All the same, mea- around. At the same time employees are ing operations in organisations.
sures to improve health and well-being expected to assume a higher level of per-
should not be measured exclusively by sonal responsibility in the sense of being
economic criteria. “entrepreneurs” in their own right. This
includes personal commitment to health
issues but also involves support from the
company in the areas of “autonomy”, “per-
sonality development” and “learning”.

Partnership and health at the workplace:
new challenges to management staff
Managers have a major influence on the
way in which concepts of partnership and
health promotion are implemented and
filled with life in companies on a day-to-
day basis. It is therefore not enough to
convince only the senior executives. The
departments responsible for personnel
and health policy can – as shown by the
experience of EfH member companies –
render valuable assistance in integrating
the targets of partnership and health into
management practice.
Bertelsmann Stiftung Alcoa-Köfém Kft., Hungary REWE Zentral AG, Germany
Carl-Bertelsmann-Str. 256 Versegi 1-15 Pf. 102 Domstr. 20
D-33311 Gütersloh H-8002 Szekesfehervar D-50668 Köln
Detlef Hollmann Dr. Istvan Miniska MD. Dieter Steinborn
p +49 . (0) 52 41. 81-815 20 Occupational Health Head of Social Services
e detlef.hollmann Manager p +49 . (0) 221. 149-19 20
@bertelsmann.de p +36 . 30 95 63 56 70 e Karin.Maurer
w www.bertelsmann e istvan.miniska @REWE.de
-stiftung.de @alcoa.com
Ruhrgas AG, Germany
BKK Bundesverband Bertelsmann AG, Germany Huttropstraße 60
Kronprinzenstr. 6 Carl-Bertelsmann-Str. 270 D-45138 Essen
D-45128 Essen D-33311 Gütersloh
Carl-Sylvius von Falken-
Dr. Gregor Breucker Dr. Franz Netta hausen Head of Human
p +49(0) 2 01. 1 79 - 12 09 Head of Central Services Resources Concepts &
e BreuckerG@bkk-bv.de Human Resources / Management Department
Principles of Social Policy p +49 . (0) 2 01. 84 42 15
EfH-President p +49 . (0) 52 41. 80 16 20 e Carl.von.Falkenhausen
Prof. Dr. Dr. hc e Franz.Netta @ruhrgas.com
Rita Süssmuth @Bertelsmann.de
Platz der Republik Stora Enso, Finnland
D-11011 Berlin Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Stora Enso Oyj
p +49 (0) 30. 22 77 79 98 Portugal FIN-55800 Imatra
e rita.suessmuth Av. João XXI, 63
Dr. Paavo Jäppinen
@bundestag.de P-1017 Lisboa Codex
Vice President Employee
Dr. Manuela Neto Well-Being and Occu-
Executive Project Company Doctor pational Health & Safety
co-ordinator Caixa Geral de Depósitos p +358 . 204 62 43 31
Prof. Dr. Dr. hc DPE Medicina do Trabalho e paavo.jappinen
Eberhard Ulich p +351. 21. 790-55 52 @storaenso.com
Obere Zäune 14 e elsa.baltazar@cgd.pt
CH-8001 Zürich Volkswagen AG, Germany
p +41. 1. 254-30 65 GlaxoSmithKline, UK Brieffach 1599
e ulich@iafob.ch 980 Great West Road 38436 Wolfsburg
Brentford, Middlesex
Dr. Uwe Brandenburg
Scientific Advisor of the TW8 9GS, UK
Zentrales Gesundheits-
Network
Susan Cruse wesen
Prof. Dr. Jean-Francois Manager, Employee p +49 (0) 53 61. 92 74 87
Caillard Health Support UK e uwe.oppermann-
Former President of the p +44 . 20 80 . 47 53 54 brandenburg
»International Committee e susan.m.cruse @volkswagen.de
for Occupational Health« @gsk.com
(ICOH) Zakład Energetyczny
p+33 . 1. 42 34-81 90 HÅG a.s.a., Norway Toruń S.A., Poland
e jean-francois.caillard PB 5055 ul. Generala Bema 128
@chu-rouen.fr N-0301 Oslo PL-87-100 Toruń
Kirsti Vandraas Wieslaw Szurmiej
Project Director R&D / Head of Human
Enterprise for Health 4 | 2002

Ergonomics Resources Department
p +47. 22 59 59 13 Zakład Energetyczny
e kfv@hag.no p +48 . 566 59 51 00
e w.szurmiej
HILTI AG @zetsa.torun.pl
Werkstrasse 13
A-6712 Thüringen
Dipl.- Ing. Hartwig Eugster
Head of Corporate
Human Resources
p +43 . 5550 2451 3213
e EugHart@Hilti.com

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