Health is a top priority

Silvia Hägele's colleagues are the focus of her daily work. Working in personnel development at Bilfinger Berger Industrial Services, she designs and implements the division’s training program and mentors the BA students. Over the last few months, however, she has been focusing her attention on the “uneven fir tree". The shape of this tree has displaced the more traditional pyramid shape when portraying population development in Germany. It shows that middle age will be the dominant force over the next few decades and that the population will decrease noticeably. Hägele is convinced that "companies must prepare for this change". Bilfinger Berger Industrial Services has therefore launched a demography project which looked at two main challenges: firstly, that it is becoming more difficult to attract and retain the next generation of junior managers. "Furthermore, we must do everything we can to ensure that our employees continue to stay healthy as they age", says Hägele.

The emphasis here is on industrial workers who are exposed to physical strain during their work. Health panels were held in several companies for such employees. In reaction to suggestions from colleagues numerous measures have already been implemented. "For physically demanding activities, back support belts, shoes with special gel inlays and improved knee pads are now available, to name just a few examples" says Hägele. Special services were developed to meet the specific needs of trainees or management. They range from ergonomic consulting for the workstation as well as relaxation and strengthening exercises and nutrition tips. Two seminars have now been integrated into the Bilfinger Berger Training Program and can be taken Group-wide. All these measures, which are part of the BIS Academy, are geared toward increasing employees' awareness about their health and supporting a healthy lifestyle.

Hägele, a qualified psychologist, has been working on the demography project since 2008 and coordinates the diversity of tasks involved. For the Junior Management Prize, she took a close look at certain aspects of her work. "I mainly concentrated on how operational health management can be embedded into the company." To this end, she analyzed past processes and derived key success factors for implementation. The most important factor was, in her view, that "the initiatives were not simply decreed and enforced from above. Instead we arrived at common solutions tuned to the needs of the various businesses and employees through pilot projects and cross-functional cooperation." And absolutely everybody was involved - from occupational safety officer through to works council members and Managing Directors. A health fund and a consultancy specializing in occupational health management have also been brought on board. "These partners make a very important contribution both from what they deliver in terms of content and from an organizational perspective." After the successful conclusion of the pilot project and the follow-up projects, it is now a question of setting up health management on this same basis at other companies and using the key success factors for other projects."