363-1066-00L  Designing Effective Projects for Promoting Health@Work

SemesterSpring Semester 2019
LecturersG. Bauer, R. Brauchli, G. J. Jenny
Periodicityyearly recurring course
Language of instructionEnglish
CommentNumber of participants limited to 30.


AbstractThe fast changing, flexible and performance-oriented economy implies increasing challenges and opportunities for the health of employees. Creating good working conditions and promoting healthy lifestyles of employees becomes more and more important for employers and employees. Students learn how to develop an effective, real-life project of their choice to promote health@work.
Learning objectiveStudents become familiar with challenges and opportunities of a changing world of work. They get an overview of intervention approaches and principles in the fields of worksite health promotion as well as work and organizational psychology. On this basis, they learn how to develop an effective, real life worksite health promotion project of their choice – addressing lifestyle factors or working conditions.
During the project work, they learn to follow the typical phases of selecting/framing a relevant work-related health issue, conducting an analysis, formulating smart objectives, developing a realistic action plan, estimating the time and money needed for these actions, and finally evaluating the impact of the project. This will strengthen their general project management skills.
Students will know how to apply key quality criteria of health promotion projects: 1.) how to follow a systematic, evidence-based approach (project management), 2.) how to assure involvement of and thus acceptance by the users (participation), 3.) how to consider both individual, lifestyle-related and organizational, work-related factors (comprehensiveness), and 4.) how to integrate the project into the routine of the organization to assure sustainability (integration). This will increase the impact of future health promotion projects developed by the students.
D-MTEC students will be able to systematically address employee health and performance in their future management practice. D-HEST students will be able to apply their health promotion knowledge to the challenging context of corporations. D-USYS students will be able to consider lifestyle factors and the working environment in their future work. The exchange among these interdisciplinary student groups will foster their ability to solve real life problems in a transdisciplinary manner. Finally, students get acquainted how to design their future work in a health promoting way.
Content1. Challenges in health@work and intervention approaches
2. Lifestyle interventions at work incl. digital tools
3. Personal and organizational strategies for promoting healthy work
4. Core concepts, values and principles in promoting health@work;
introduction to project work & 7-pillar planning model
5. Framing and analysis of health@work issues
6. Participatory priority setting in health@work projects and defining outcome objectives
7. Combining levels of interventions and defining process objectives
8. Project management
9. Evaluation of process and outcomes
10. Preparation* & presentation of posters of group work

Each lecture combines an input by an expert in the respective field and group discussions. During 8 sessions students will directly apply the acquired knowledge to an own, individual project on a self-chosen topic on health@work. Tutors closely support the students in designing their projects. During the last two dates, the students present their projects to the entire class in a poster format. This presentation will be commented by the course leader and serves as the final course assessment.
Prerequisites / NoticeA course for students dedicated to applied learning through projects. As the whole course is designed as a hands-on workshop for the students, active participation in all lectures is expected. Class size limited to 30 students.