Workplace Health Promotion

For a service-oriented and customer-focused administration, contact and communication with citizens and companies are a critical success factor for increasing trust and finally compliance. This could not be achieved by the implementation of technical solutions only. It also needs staff that consider taxpayer’s needs and treat them with empathy. In order to achieve these goals despite decreasing staff numbers, the Austrian Financial Administration is promoting workplace health of its staff.

The sustained promotion of fitness for work, and especially the support for all employees of the Administration regarding their physical and mental health, is documented in the annually published Health Promotion Report. A comprehensive system of workplace health management (WHM) with a focus on clear targets and performance figures, aims to integrate WHM into the core processes of organisational control and to implement it in the sense of shared responsibility. Numerous offerings and activities provided on site at the individual offices by dedicated health moderators are part of the workplace health promotion efforts. In order to measure the outcomes following measurements are applied.

a) Workplace Evaluation of Mental Stress

Differentiated analysis of work processes and working conditions is used to reduce avoidable strain and optimise the handling of stress. Work analyses evaluate work assignments and circumstances of their execution on the one hand and the actual working activity with its requirements, resources and stressors on the other. Behavioural observation at the different workplaces, systematically supplemented with interviews and questionnaires, provides results related to the workplace and activity as opposed to the individual employee.

The results of this analysis are indications for reducing overall strain through changes in technology, workplace setting, work organisation and cooperation and/or work execution. Overall, a huge step towards workplace enhancement.

b) Work Ability Index Measurement (WAI)

Through the mitigation of health risks by way of targeted workplace health management measures, with their success measured using the Work Ability Index (WAI).

A recent measurement of the WAI has shown that the average work ability score within the Federal Ministry of Finance has improved compared to the two previous measurements as a result of the applied workplace health management measures.