Attitudes of Company Executives toward a Comprehensive Workplace Health Management—Results of an Exploratory Cross-Sectional Study in Germany

Achim Siegel, Aileen C. Hoge, Anna T. Ehmann, Peter Martus and Monika A. Rieger
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Achim Siegel: Institute of Occupational and Social Medicine and Health Services Research, University Hospital Tübingen, Wilhelmstr. 27, 72074 Tübingen, Germany
Aileen C. Hoge: Institute of Occupational and Social Medicine and Health Services Research, University Hospital Tübingen, Wilhelmstr. 27, 72074 Tübingen, Germany
Anna T. Ehmann: Institute of Occupational and Social Medicine and Health Services Research, University Hospital Tübingen, Wilhelmstr. 27, 72074 Tübingen, Germany
Peter Martus: Institute for Clinical Epidemiology and Applied Biometry, University Hospital Tübingen, Silcherstr. 5, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
Monika A. Rieger: Institute of Occupational and Social Medicine and Health Services Research, University Hospital Tübingen, Wilhelmstr. 27, 72074 Tübingen, Germany

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-20

Abstract: Workplace health management (WHM) in Germany aims at maintaining and increasing the health and well-being of employees. Little is known about company executives’ attitudes toward WHM. To gain more insight, we conducted a large-scale survey in companies in the German county of Reutlingen in 2017. We sent a standardized questionnaire to 906 companies, containing inter alia 26 self-constructed declarative statements depicting company executives’ opinions on various WHM aspects; 222 questionnaires could be evaluated. By exploratory factor analysis we assigned the 26 items to six factors reflecting different attitudes toward WHM. Factor values were standardized to a scale from 0 to 10. The attitude ‘positive view of general health services in the company’, for example, achieved by far the lowest mean agreement (3.3 points). For the attitude ‘general skepticism toward WHM’, agreement and disagreement were balanced (5.0 points). Using multiple regression analyses, we searched for variables that could partially explain respondents’ agreement with attitudes. In conclusion, a general WHM skepticism was widespread, but not dominant. The idea that general health services should be offered in companies was predominantly rejected. Older respondents and respondents from smaller companies and craft enterprises were more skeptical than average about WHM and its possible extensions.

Keywords: workplace health management; total worker health; occupational safety and health; small and medium-sized enterprises (SME); cross-sectional survey; self-administered questionnaire; exploratory factor analysis; multiple regression analysis; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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