Health protection in the world of digital work

Health protection is an important topic that has returned to the center of attention also due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to the numerous advantages, the digitalisation and flexibility of the world of work also hide risks, especially regarding the health of employees. In 2021, employees in Germany were on sick leave for an average of 14.5 days.

In the graph below you can see the reasons for illness that led to absences in 2021 according to the DAK health report.

What is behind health protection?

The Occupational Safety and Health Act (ArbSchG) is a fundamental law for safety at work. This means that the employer must recognize the health risks in the workplace and introduce any protective measures. These measures must be sustainably integrated into company structures and processes. More precisely, this means health protection Measures to prevent work-related health problems and occupational diseases with the Objective, prevent the dangerous effects of work on health. These are mainly long-term physical, psychological and social effects. There are two different types of prevention. On the one hand, the prevention of relationships, which aims at working conditions. On the other hand, behavioral prevention, which focuses on the behavior of the individual.

You can see what laws exist regarding workplace health and safety here.

What dangers and challenges lie behind Work 4.0?

In the following figure they are The challenges of the world of work 4.0 shown. These do not only concern accelerated work processes and new forms of work organization, but also mobility, accessibility, collaboration and acceptance of certain tasks by artificial intelligence.

However, in addition to the numerous opportunities, the challenges also represent dangers. Above all, there are risks to the health of employees. Increased and uniform activity in all areas of work can lead to physical problems, such as back problems or irritation of muscles, ligaments and tendons.
Another important risk is the development of psychological stress, which increasingly dominates daily working life. In the following figure you can see the major stresses in daily working life.

To counteract stress in daily working life and promote the sustainable health and operational capacity of their employees, companies must increasingly implement health management.

What are the appropriate measures to promote employee health?

Health-promoting measures not only represent a great advantage for employees, but also for the company itself. Healthy employees are more motivated, perform better and have a lower turnover rate. Furthermore, enormous costs can be saved that would otherwise accrue to the company due to sickness absence and the attractiveness of the employer also increases.

The biggest stressors in everyday working life are monotonous tasks, high physical exertion and shift work. One measure to counteract these stresses in particular is ergonomic shift planning.

Stressful working conditions can be divided into several categories. One of these is ergonomic factors. This category includes, among other things, repetitive work activities, awkward postures during the work process, and heavy lifting and carrying.

Ergonomic shift planning

Ergonomic shift planning can counteract these stresses. Each step of a work process is assigned a load level. Accordingly, the employees of the respective process are assigned to other work phases at regular intervals to keep the workload as low as possible.
Ergonomic shift planning helps minimize employee stress and reduces the level of illness in the company.

A software that supports ergonomic shift planning is, for example, B. WFM One from pl.li Solutions. Workforce management software can be used by companies to carry out ergonomic shift planning with little effort and to promote employee health.

Intelligent prediction of unplanned absences

Another measure to limit employee stress in the company is an intelligent forecast of unplanned absences. The most common unscheduled absences are sudden illnesses, both of employees and their children.

To keep the additional workload for other employees as low as possible, this type of absence must be taken into account in the overall planning of staff deployment. With the help of machine learning, for example, absences can be predicted very precisely based on illness data. This allows workforce planning to create additional capacity to support employees without incurring significant expenses.

In addition to ergonomic shift planning and intelligent prediction of unplanned absences, what other measures are there to protect the health of employees? Perhaps you already have some in use?

Download the checklist to determine the status of health promotion in your company and learn about other methods.