Healthy Working Environments

With regards of the profound change in the working environment, the following project deals with the question of how to maintain the health of employees in the long term considering the longer period of time they have to spend in the work life due to the extended retirement age. This question is of a great importance as employees represent both crucial company and social resources and fundamental individuals.

The work in this research area is based on a resource-oriented, salutogenetic understanding of health, according to which health promotion and protection at the working place are not solely limited to the prevention of possible stress and health risk factors but it goes further to the conception and maintenance of health resources at the workplace. Therefore health-promoting work and organisational design as well as new forms of participation are crucial to attain this goals. Workplace prevention is understood as a permanent and company-wide task that must be anchored in the company's strategy and supported by a culture of prevention. Demographic change, the promotion of work ability of older employees, the design of age-appropriate working conditions, the occupation of employees with poor health conditions and their integration into the work process are the heart of this work. The beneficiaries and stakeholders are employers, employees, employee representatives, company specialists and experts on health and safety at work.

Through empirical studies and design-oriented (model) projects, the iso-Institute develops practical instruments and procedures and creates aids for action with which concrete danger and stress areas in companies as well as operational shortcomings can be spotted. Moreover, our institute designs preventive concepts for company health policy.

The iso-Institute has a long tradition in conducting studies for the promotion and maintenance of health in the workplace for instance in the research work carried out in the 1970s as part of the "Humanisation of Working Life" programme. At that time, the focus was primarily on the physical stresses and health risks related to the Taylorism working world, but to date, psycho-social stresses and strains are at the core of the work. This is particularly due to the challenges that the working world has to face nowadays with new forms of work and new demands.

Current Projects

Completed Projects in Recent Years