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What outcomes to measure? | What tools are available?
Three Principles to Guide... | How to start measuring...
Healthy Workplace Outcomes
What tools are available?
A variety of evaluation methods are available. These include:
- Employee surveys
- The THCU has developed a review of situational assessments for workplaces to use as part of their workplace strategies. This will be available soon, online at http://www.thcu.ca/workplace/workplace.html.
- The 2003 CHWW Strategies section (Planning for a Healthy Workplace) provides an excellent list of assessment tools to consider. It is likely that the tool you choose will be similar [if not the same] as the one you selected for your baseline assessment of the organization, when conducting your needs assessment. If the tool used during your needs assessment appropriately identified the key issues facing your organization, and provided your organization with good baseline measures, then using this same tool will enable you to easily determine the progress made since the last assessment was conducted.
- Administrative data - such as those items listed above under Organizational Statistics
- Wellness program data, such as:
- Measuring utilization rates of lifestyle/wellness programs offered
- Measuring employee involvement in existing initiatives (e.g. organizational wellness committee, occupational health and safety committee, return-to-work teams)
- Measuring employee/stakeholder involvement in the healthy workplace strategy development (e.g. - are all levels and areas of the organization participating in some way?)
- Employee consultations/ focus groups
Hosting focus groups or intimate employee discussions is a great way to get qualitative feedback on employee perceptions of the organization, and evaluate trends in employee satisfaction and morale.Such groups can be used to solicit opinions on job satisfaction, trust in leadership, pride, organizational cohesiveness, and employee engagement. They can also be used to gather information about leaderships' approach to supporting and reinforcing a healthy workplace through their actions (e.g. giving employees control over work) and encouragement of employee participation in organizational health issues and wellness programs.
If an employee performance review is a key tool used in your organization, then these intimate discussions can also provide insight into how it is perceived - as a positive, helpful learning tool for employees or something quite different.
- Return on Investment Analysis
Evaluating the costs and benefits of your healthy workplace strategy will likely be a necessary activity for garnering continued organizational support. This involves keeping track of implementation costs (e.g. employee time on committees; costs of tools, surveys; etc) and comparing these to cost-savings seen through improved organizational health (e.g. increased attendance, reduced turnover, reduced recruitment costs, reduced accident rates and subsequent workers' compensation and LTD costs, etc.). It also involves assessing the benefits achieved (e.g. higher morale, work satisfaction) and deciding if these are worth the cost of the initiative or if there are less expensive ways to achieve the same results. The Return on Investment measurement should be based on whatever indicators you are trying to improve. You may require the services of an experienced consultant to assist with this type of analysis if you do not have the in-house expertise.
Workplace Health In Action:
Stats Canada, a CAE Healthy Workplace Award winner, compared their department to other Public Service departments in 2002 and found that their employees reported a higher level of satisfaction with:
- Receiving useful feedback from supervisors
- Balancing personal, family & work needs
In addition to this, they showed 2-3 times less turnover than other departments.