Work Health
QuickLinks
Key Resources
- Balloons and weights: A quick exercise to check your work team's wellbeing [PDF, 97KB] and Balloons and weights: A quick exercise to check your work team's wellbeing [RTF, 37KB]
- Coaching builds positive work relationships [PDF, 98KB] and Coaching builds positive work relationships [RTF, 38KB]
- Professor Ilmarinen flyer [PDF,330KB] and Professor Ilmarinen flyer [RTF,788KB]
- Sedentary Work Fact Sheet [PDF, 147KB] and Sedentary Work Fact Sheet [RTF, 13KB]
- Health is a 21st Century Workplace Challenge
- Help & Contact
At Comcare, we recognise the importance of workplace design and management, and how working conditions can have a significant effect on the health of workers.
Good work can have a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of employees, providing financial security, social inclusion, personal development, friendship, self-esteem and protection from physical and psychosocial harm. Healthy and safe workplaces are designed to prevent harm and promote health and wellbeing through the participation of workers.
By providing a healthy and safe work environment and promoting the health benefits of fair and decent work, Comcare, employers, and workers can deliver stronger federal workplaces and improve participation for those with a disability or ill health.
Comcare is a signatory to the Royal College of Physicians Consensus Statement ‘Realising the Health Benefits of Work’. The statement recognises compelling international and Australasian evidence that work is generally good for health and wellbeing, and that long-term absence, disability and unemployment generally have a negative impact on health and wellbeing.
Work, individual health and community factors are interrelated
‘Work is the most effective means to improve the wellbeing of individuals, their families and communities …’ - Sir Mansel Aylward
The circumstances in which people grow, live, work and age; and the systems put in place to deal with illness, all determine how healthy we are.
Health care alone cannot counteract the effects of these factors on health. Work is the most effective means to improve the wellbeing of individuals, their families and communities. Working adults spend more time at work—approximately one-third of their day—than in any other setting. So the relationship between work and health is an important one.
An integrated approach to work health and wellbeing is needed
When employers work in collaboration with workers, they can influence not only the health of their staff, but also the health and productivity of the organisation as a whole.
An integrated approach seeks to prevent sources of harm to health, promote healthy life choices and improve participation in work for those with illness or disability.
