Deputy Christine Becker looks forward to Health Days in the fall
Health and well-being have long found their way into professional life. Anyone who wants to perform and be satisfied at work needs a supportive work environment. Many employers have long recognized that their employees are their potential and promote the health of their employees through "Occupational Health Management" (OHM).
The city administration of Homburg understood early on that the topic of health must be viewed holistically and is more than just the absence of illness. Therefore, those responsible have made it their task to promote the health of employees as well as citizens in a comprehensive manner. Thus, the city of Homburg not only participates in workplace health management (BGM) but has also been involved since June 2011 in the campaign “Saarland Lives Healthy!” to promote the health of Homburg’s citizens. Christine Becker and Annette Bachmann-Vicktor have advanced the project “Homburg Lives Healthy!” along with the associated steering group. A soon visible result of this campaign is the action day on Saturday, September 17, 2022, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Christian-Weber-Platz.
In general, the city administration of Homburg sees itself as a service-oriented and citizen-friendly service provider. To deliver a high quality of these services, cooperation among all municipal employees is essential. Equally important for the smooth operation and fulfillment of the city's responsibilities is the well-being, motivation, and health of its employees in the town hall and the municipal building yard. The workplace health management (BGM) includes occupational safety (work safety and occupational medicine), company integration management (BEM), and workplace health promotion (BGF). It thus encompasses measures aimed at holism and sustainability.
"We can look back with pride on around seven years of corporate health management at the City of Homburg. It also started with a committed Personnel Office, where, for example, Heike Bauer and Alexandra Rheinwald care about health as much as I do," explains Deputy Mayor Christine Becker. In recent years, not only has the required occupational safety been intensified, but various company sports opportunities and numerous employee training sessions have also been offered.
As early as autumn 2015, a holistic health course with Annette Bachmann-Vicktor took place for the first time. To continue the BGM (occupational health management) continuously and systematically, Annette Bachmann-Vicktor was appointed as the coordinator of the BGM in 2016. Together with her, the "BGM Steering Committee" was founded in early 2017 under the leadership of Christine Becker. Since then, it has been developing further ideas on which measures for health promotion can be implemented. "This instrument, represented in all areas of administration, is an important component of our BGM. From my point of view, we have initiated and established a process that affects the entire administration and hopefully has become irreversible," said Christine Becker.
Over the past years, the number of health services and workplace sports groups has been further expanded. In retrospect, the initiators can look back not only on numerous but also on diverse lectures on health topics, health checks were conducted, there were "trial offers" for possible follow-up courses, contacts with fitness studios, sports and relaxation courses, courses on sleep disorders, back schools, seminars on communication, as well as other offers and courses ranging from nutrition to behavioral prevention and smoking cessation.
From Christine Becker's perspective, BGM is more than just "the healthy apple" for employees. "With the steering committee, we continuously address behavioral, structural, and system-oriented measures. Due to the broad composition of the steering committee, we do not talk about the employees, but with them, involving them and understanding 'where the shoe pinches.' This allows us to select health measures accordingly and constantly adapt them to the needs," explain Christine Becker and Annette Bachmann-Vicktor. Ongoing evaluation and documentation also contribute to this. The aim is to optimize the current measures and make BGM a continuous and improving process.
Deputy Mayor Christine Becker is also full of praise for the coordinator Annette Bachmann-Vicktor. "The collaboration with Annette Bachmann-Vicktor is excellent both in our workplace health management and in the project 'Homburg lives healthy!' Thanks to her commitment, we can look back on a very positive development in these areas. I hope this cooperation can continue like this for a long time," said Christine Becker.
Annette Bachmann-Vicktor gladly returns this praise to the collaboration with the deputy mayor and the steering committee. "The city administration recognized early on that occupational health management (OHM) not only serves the health of employees but also helps it as a modern employer in external representation. Ultimately, voluntary benefits and offerings such as health management can also contribute to having an edge in the competition for skilled workers and young talent," explains the coordinator.
Since, in addition to sports and counseling services, the way employees interact with each other also plays an important role, a seminar "Healthy Leadership" was offered for managers in the administration, for example. For the employees, an internal mission statement also emerged from the workshops "Values and Leadership."
Since March 2018, there has been a cooperation agreement within the BGM with IKK Südwest. Previously, the city administration already worked with AOK and other health insurance companies. Since then, IKK has supported the administration on health days with measurements and health checks and regularly offers workplace health measures, such as back school, which can be specifically tailored to employees – as in the municipal building yard.
Unfortunately, not all measures could be implemented as planned during the corona period in 2020 and 2021, regret Christine Becker and Annette Bachmann-Vicktor, but this year it has largely been possible to resume the earlier diversity of measures and offerings. Therefore, the two persons responsible for BGM in the Homburg city administration are currently looking ahead with much greater optimism. In autumn, there will be health days for the employees and on September 17th, an action day on the topic of health in the city center.
