Employer's responsibility to create a healthy working environment.

Despite the vast majority (91%) of employees believing that it is their employer's responsibility to create a healthy working environment, nearly a third (32%) of employees feels their Office actually hinders their ability to lead a healthy lifestyle, according to new independent research commissioned by the World Heart Federation and conducted by Opinion Health.

"The survey results suggest links between specific job sectors and the level of engagement in Office-wellness initiatives, or steps taken towards a heart-healthy lifestyle" explains Dr. Kathryn Taubert, Senior Science Officer, World Heart Federation. "As many of us spend over half of our waking hours at work, the Office is the ideal setting to encourage behaviour changes to minimize a person's risk of cardiovascular disease."

The largest global awareness campaign on heart disease and stroke, initiated by the World Heart Federation. Every year, approximately 17.1 million lives are claimed by the global burden of cardiovascular disease, and yet, most heart disease and stroke is preventable.The World Heart Federation and World Economic Forum are encouraging employers and employees to promote a heart-healthy Office by adopting office-wellness programs. Such programmes encourage employees to modify their behaviour, by, for example, the promotion of physical activity via gym memberships or cycle to work schemes, or encouraging employees to stop smoking via the adoption of smoke-free Offices or the provision of smoking-cessation programs.
"Apart from having a responsibility towards employees' health, employers stand to benefit from introducing Office-wellness programmes, as they have been shown to decrease absenteeism, while increasing productivity, retention, creativity and innovation" states Olivier Raynaud, Senior Director, Global Health and Health Industries at the World Economic Forum. "During the past decade many businesses have recognized the importance of employee health and have committed to include health promotion as a priority in their corporate agenda."

The survey compares responses from employees across five job sectors in India, Mexico, Poland and Portugal.* The World Heart Federation's employee survey also revealed that of those questioned:

-- Approximately one out of ten (11%) workers do not agree that their employer supports a healthy Office, despite six out of ten employees(63%) rating support of healthy initiatives, and eight out of ten (80%) rating health insurance, as important or very important when choosing an employee.

Source : tkbsen