Health Inc. Worksite health promotion in small and medium size enterprises

Introduction  In small and medium enterprises (SME’s) less attention goes to health promotion due to organisational and financial barriers. Industrial estates experiment today in organising collaborative effort between companies regarding sustainable entrepreneurship, waste treatment and environmental management. The project ‘NV Gezond’ (‘Health Inc.’) provides the possibility to include health promotion in the collaboration of SME’s, by foreseeing practical guidance and development of instruments.    

Methods  A practical stepwise approach was developed, based on existing methodology regarding health promotion at work. The approach was tested in two industrial estates. In summary, the methodology stimulates a healthy lifestyle policy (i.e. physical activity and healthy nutrition) on two levels: the level of the individual company and the level of company associations on industrial estates.    

Results  A toolbox was developed and available on the interactive website www.nvgezond.be. The toolbox contains three instruments: a road map for common health activities, a roadmap for health promotion in the own company and a guide for individual lifestyle advice. This concept and toolbox will be disseminated in Flanders and abroad. The two industrial estates differed largely in space, number of companies and park management. In the smallest park 50% of the SME’s participated, in the other 22%. This resulted in the organisation of a different set of activities. For the collaborative activities, cooperation was set-up with service providers close to the industrial parks (food caterers, fitness providers, etc.). The in-house individual company activities were organised in cooperation with external prevention services for health and safety.    

Discussion  Often the limited possibilities of SME’s are considered as important barriers for health promotion. Via collaborative effort, it is possible to change this and to organise activities that can be organised by a good park management approach in which inter-corporate social responsibility is promoted.