Health promotion in enterprises counteracting the consequences of workforce ageing. How does it differ from interventions in other companies and what kind of barriers does it face?

摘要

Background: The aim of the article is to address the question of whether companies implementing personnel’s health promotion to counteract the consequences of workforce ageing differ in their health-related activities from enterprises not having such a motivation. The analyzed differences concern the frequency of implementing and evaluating selected health promotion interventions, assessing employees’ health needs and expectations, managers’ interest in population ageing, and other motives of health promotion implementation. Moreover, obstacles to health promotion in the context of ageing are analyzed. Directions of supporting enterprises in diminishing the consequences of this demographic process via health promotion are recommended. Material and Methods: Quantitative analysis: standardized computer-assisted personal interviews with representatives of management boards (October– November 2017). Sample: 940 companies from Poland implementing health promotion activities (including 424 organizations willing przedsi?wzi?to counteract the consequences of workforce ageing), selected from a representative sample of 1000 enterprises employing ≥50 people. Qualitative analysis: focus groups interviews (FGIs) with employers concerning their attitudes to managing personnel’s health in the context of population ageing (March 2017). Sample: 64 respondents in 8 FGIs. Results: Companies promoting employees’ health to diminish the consequences of workforce ageing more often implement and evaluate most workplace health-related activities, and provide more reasons for promoting personnel’s health. Their managers are more often interested in the issue of demographic changes, and they less frequently complain about the obstacles of health promotion implementation. Major obstacles are employers’ reluctance or impossibility to pay for health promotion, low managers’ awareness/know-how concerning health promotion, insufficient human and infrastructure resources, unfavorable employees’ attitudes, and disadvantageous legal/fiscal issues. Conclusions: Companies’ willingness to counteract implications of personnel’s ageing is conducive to their engagement in health promotion. The dissemination/intensification of workplace health-oriented activities, which fosters minimizing the consequences of demographic changes, requires increasing employers’ interest in the issue of population ageing and health promotion as a tool of coping with this problem, facilitating gaining the knowledge of workplace health promotion management by companies’ representatives, and diminishing legislative/fiscal barriers to the implementation of workplace health-related activities.