In order to be properly protective, safety equipment needs to fit the person wearing it. The same goes for health and wellbeing (HWB) strategies: a strategy that ticks all the best practice boxes isn’t going to be effective unless it ‘fits’ the organisation and worker population for which it is intended.

Unfortunately, fitting an HWB program to a business isn’t as cheap or simple as fitting a helmet to a head. In fact, the prospect of designing and implementing these kinds of programs can be daunting. Who better to look to for guidance, then, than a group of people famed for their methodological rigor and commitment to evidence-based practice: the scientists at Australia’s CSIRO.

Coming up with an HWB strategy is a bit like science, Dr Angelica Vecchio-Sadus said, when we caught up with her after she spoke at the 10th National Workers’ Compensation Summit.

“Our scientists read up on what work has already been done in their field, who has published, what they are saying and what the general trends are. When we put our [HWB] strategy together we took a similar approach. Before we began, it was very important to gather information about our situation at the time.”

To get a picture of the then-current state of affairs, the team charged with formulating the CSIRO’s HWB strategy looked at:

• Workers’ compensation data;
• The demographics (e.g. gender, age) of the workforce and the kinds of work undertaken;
• The geographical distribution of workplaces;
• Employee feedback collected in regular staff opinion polls;
• Ideas put forward by CSIRO’s board;
• Published research and peer-reviewed literature on HWB;
• Public commentary on relevant issues (i.e. experts speaking to the media);
• The legislative framework relevant to their industry; and
• What other organisations were doing in terms of HWB.

The advantages of adopting such a rigorous approach to HWB strategy-making are many. One key advantage stressed by Dr Vecchio-Sadus is that thorough groundwork gives a strategy credibility.

“Imagine if I just put together a strategy based on ‘I’ve read an article in the newspaper,’ and that was it. It would lack robustness, rigor and credibility.”

Doing the research makes it possible to demonstrate why changes are necessary and what the return on investment might be.  A credible strategy is more likely to be endorsed by senior management, who put their own credibility on the line by investing in HWB.

It is also more likely to be a good strategy. Knowing what other organisations are doing, for example, means that you can emulate their successes while avoiding their failures. Even a broad-stroke knowledge of what is going on in the field gives you an indication of whether your strategy is in the ballpark, or out of the game altogether.

Another important advantage of a well-researched strategy is that it is more likely to be tailored to your particular industry, organisation and worker population. For CSIRO, this tailoring meant taking into account the fact that their employees already had a lot of safety obligations under the law, and were unlikely to respond well to a prescriptive program.

“Our health and wellbeing strategy was about inspiring staff and providing opportunities rather than taking an enforced approach. In a lot of ways, health and wellbeing is a personal thing. It’s about lifestyle. We’ve got enough health and safety legislation that dictates what you must do, for example, you must have a blood lead test for lead-risk jobs. We can’t enforce wellbeing – we can only support and encourage people to enhance their own wellbeing.”

When it came to implementing and marketing the strategy, the extensive research carried out by the CSIRO also paid off in terms of logistical efficiency.

“We decided to have a Health and Wellbeing Week across the organisation, and that was the first time that there had been, for CSIRO, a national event of some type [in the area of health and safety]. That was a big step. It was challenging, for that to be organised, in amongst all the other priorities. Our Chief Executive opened up the National Health and Wellbeing Week. What we tried to do logistically, was to do as much as possible on a regional basis. We’ve got 6400 employees at 54 sites around Australia. Here in Melbourne, if you weren’t able to go to the activity at Clayton, you could go to the activity at Parkville. And likewise in the other States.”

Taking a ‘scientific’ approach to formulating a HWB strategy delivers benefits from the beginning of the process, when the strategy must be ‘sold’ to management, right through to the implementation of particular initiatives. Since the CSIRO introduced their evidence-based strategy, there’s been a reduction in time lost from 209 weeks to 32 weeks.

Considered, informed HWB: it’s an investment and a gift that just keeps giving!

The CSIRO’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy is online, here.  
Dr Vecchio-Sadus is happy to be contacted about CSIRO’s HWB strategy. Her email: Angelica.Vecchio-Sadus@csiro.au