Workplace Health Promotion in German Social Firms—Offers, Needs and Challenges from the Perspectives of Employees, Supervisors and Experts

Ann-Christin Kordsmeyer, Ilona Efimov, Julia Christine Lengen, Volker Harth and Stefanie Mache
Additional contact information
Ann-Christin Kordsmeyer: Institute for Occupational and Maritime Medicine (ZfAM), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), 20459 Hamburg, Germany
Ilona Efimov: Institute for Occupational and Maritime Medicine (ZfAM), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), 20459 Hamburg, Germany
Julia Christine Lengen: Institute for Occupational and Maritime Medicine (ZfAM), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), 20459 Hamburg, Germany
Volker Harth: Institute for Occupational and Maritime Medicine (ZfAM), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), 20459 Hamburg, Germany
Stefanie Mache: Institute for Occupational and Maritime Medicine (ZfAM), University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), 20459 Hamburg, Germany

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 2, 1-25

Abstract: On the general labor market, social firms provide 30–50% of people with different types of disabilities the opportunity to gain employment. However, the topic of workplace health promotion (WHP), needs for improvement and accompanied challenges are neglected in the current research and were the focus of the present study. Therefore, data triangulation was used between July and December 2020 by combining three focus groups with employees ( n = 14 employees) with 16 interviews with supervisors from several social firms in Northern Germany (e.g., from catering, cleaning or bicycle repair sectors). 17 semi-structured telephone interviews with experts in the field of WHP or social firms were added. All approaches were audio-taped, transcribed and anonymized. To analyze the data, Mayring’s qualitative content analysis was used. The results indicated that several offers for WHP, including sport, nutrition and relaxation, were offered, as well as those on smoking cessation, cooperation with external organizations or training and education offers. Needs for improvement were stated referring to additional sport offers, support for implementing a healthy diet, offers for relaxation, financial incentives or collaborations with external organizations. A low take-up of offers; a lack of resources, structures or management support; compatibility of offers with work time and organization; challenges with available trainings or the consideration of individual needs and capacities were highlighted as challenges. Overall, there is a need for further interventional and longitudinal research on WHP in social firms.

Keywords: health promotion; occupational health; social enterprises; social firms; health behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/2/959/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/2/959/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:2:p:959-:d:725497

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().