Employers’ and employees’ perceptions regarding promotion of health and well-being in the workplace

Kambo, Isabel

Abstract

Background : The workplace has been identified as a suitable setting where adult populations can be reached for health promotion and prevention of disease. However, little is known about the workplace health and well-being environment in Kenya. The country is currently suffering from a high burden of non-communicable disease burden and has identified prevention as a key action to reduce incidence. This study aimed to explore employees' and employers’ perceptions of health and well-being in the workplace to understand what health and well-being mean to them, how employers and employees influence health and well-being in the workplace and perceptions regarding the role of organisations in enhancing health and well-being for employees.

Methodology: This was a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. Participants were drawn from two urban organisations in Nairobi-Kenya. A total of eight employers and nine employees participated in the study.

Findings: Three themes and seven subthemes were generated. The first theme dealt with meanings of health and well-being, where participants revealed that being free from disease, maintaining a healthy dietary lifestyle and being active was important to them. The second theme was about perceived Influences in the workplace that impacted employee health and well-being, including peer support, role models, and access to health information. The third theme dealt with enhanced workplace well-being, which included the perceived role of organisational support for employee health and well-being.

Conclusions: Perceptions of health and well-being are multidimensional and contextual, where interplay and interconnectedness between individual, inter-personal and organisational levels exists. Employers recognise the risks of non-communicable diseases and the impact on employee productivity, absenteeism and presenteeism. Employers attempt to offer resources like subsidised gym memberships and health talks in a bid to enhance health and well-being at work, but the capacity to establish sustainable workplace health and well-being programmes is lacking. Peer support and role models are important in encouraging employees to participate in health and well-being activities. There is also no integration of the healthcare sector with workplaces to facilitate sustainable outcome-based health and well-being enhancement in the workplace. However, the study shows that workplaces have great potential and are suitable sites for health promotion and disease prevention. In this regard, a model for the integration of community health nursing practice with workplaces for health and well-being enhancement is proposed to guide future workplace health promotion design and implementation.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Dec 17, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 24, 2025
• Keywords: Workplace health and well being; Workplace health promotion; Health and wellbeing in the workplace; Workplace health promotion in Kenya
• Award Date: Jan 23, 2025