Health & Workplaces for all Ages: Europe-wide campaign launched

6th May 2016

The European Commission in conjunction with the Netherlands EU Presidency have released a two year Europe wide plan which focuses on the need to promote sustainable work and workplace safety and health. The campaign aims to raise awareness and highlight the importance of good occupational safety and health management and risk prevention – not only at the start of a worker’s career but throughout their working life, tailoring work to individuals’ abilities. The hope is to educate workers and businesses alike to protect the future health of employees up to and beyond retirement age, as well as their organisations’ productivity.

This campaign’s objectives are to:

  • promote sustainable work and healthy ageing from the beginning of working life
  • highlight the importance of risk prevention throughout working life
  • assist employers and workers (including in small and medium-sized enterprises) by providing information and tools for managing occupational safety and health in the context of an ageing workforce
  • facilitate information and good practice exchange.

This campaign topic is based on a European Parliament project conducted by EU-OSHA, ‘Safer and healthier work at any age’, along with various other EU-OSHA reports on safety and health in the context of the ageing workforce. As part of this new campaign, EU-OSHA is also releasing an e-guide on managing safety and health for an ageing workforce.

Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Marianne Thyssen, highlighted the timeliness of this campaign topic: At a time when there are important discussions going on about the future landscape of occupational safety and health in the EU, this campaign is extremely relevant. We need to start now to cater for the needs of Europe’s future workplaces and workers. Workplaces that address the health challenges of an ageing workforce gain in productivity. This is good for workers and good for business.”

Alongside this European campaign, the recent integration of wellbeing factors into GRESB’s benchmarking tool further demonstrates an increasing focus on health and wellbeing in the property management industry. To find out more about GRESB please click here.

The S2 Partnership provides bespoke, practical advice and training to clients across a range of sectors, to ensure specific risks are identified, managed and reduced to maintain a healthy workplace; safeguarding the health and wellbeing of employees whilst also reducing business risks and costs.

To find out more on how the S2 Partnership can help please contact our experienced team – we’re happy to help.