Labour policy and health

Recent health research has concentrated on analysing not only the reduction of pathogenic factors (in the world of labour by reducing or minimising real or suspected health hazards within the risk assessment framework according to the German Occupational Health and Safety Act), but also the promotion of salutogenic factors that increase well-being. Work design that is appropriate for employees means the creation of task-appropriate, optimal interaction between working people, equipment and work objects. Work design as a goal of company and inter-company efforts in occupational safety, health promotion and prevention goes beyond the goal of freedom from damage and impairment. The approach aims at organising and designing work in a way that is conducive to health and learning, that is non-discriminatory, participation-oriented and resource-friendly, and that takes up salutogenic approaches and maintains and promotes room for manoeuvre. This requires concepts and operational implementation strategies. Against this backdrop, the main questions pursued in this area are where in today’s world of work the levers for humane work design are located, which measures are suitable, and how these can be implemented at company or inter-company level.

Research fields therefore include the entirety of health policy strategies and measures that aim to combat potentially pathogenic influences, prevent illnesses and health impairments or their aggravation, or strengthen  people’s health resources and potentials. This includes looking at health burdens and their socially unequal distribution. A number of projects in the field have analysed how different target groups’ health resources (participation, competence building, gratification, conflict management) can be included conceptually and practically and how they can be promoted within the work setting.

Special attention is paid to the situation of small and medium-sized enterprises. The guiding hypothesis of the study is that in the world of labour, in small companies there is a specific set of social conditions for the creation of safety and health. What is needed are integrative solutions that are suitable for everyday use, that can be embedded in the labour and business processes of small companies with little effort, but at the same time reliably comply with the applicable standards. Therefore the core of the empirical analysis and practical implementation proposals in a number of research projects in this field was and is the joint development of prevention concepts with employees, entrepreneurs and institutions active in the small business working environment – such as chambers, guilds and employers’ liability insurance associations.

Particularly in situations of upheaval, it is essential to design work with foresight. New technologies, processes and methods of instruction create new risks for workers and require a reorientation of concepts and methods. We therefore see in the change of work a necessity for its development and implementation in the changed work organisational processes.

In the “INDIGHO” project, concepts and measures were developed for securing skilled workers and innovative capacity in the hospitality industry.

Comprehensive recommendations for the preventive design of Work 4.0 for SMEs were set out, for example, in the “Prevention 4.0” project as part of “Implementation aids Work 4.0”.

In the “Athene 4.0” project, concepts for work design that is conducive to learning and appropriate to health are being developed for digitalisation in the skilled trades sector in the context of the introduction of a service platform.

The increasing tendencies of dissolution of boundaries and de-institutionalisation make labour policy at the same time social policy. While the world of work and the world of life are becoming increasingly intertwined, the institutions of labour are in danger of losing their grip on their subject matter. Works councils and supervisory boards, trade unions and employers’ associations as well as chambers and federations are challenged to redefine their roles. Work in transition as a research subject also raises the question of direct participation opportunities for employees, also in the context of tapping the potential of new technologies for co-determination 4.0 (see Georg et al. 2020). For example, projects in the research area are concerned with new participation approaches based on decentralised and networked reorganisation of work processes in the digital transformation, and a design of institutionalised co-determination related to this. As central actors in workplace co‑determination, interest groups play an important role both as the object of research and as transfer partners. In projects, the possibilities of enforcement within a framework of conflict partnership as well as internal structures of works council committees and internal negotiation processes are researched and supported. The research area supports interest representation bodies in practising conflict partnership at eye level by providing scientific expertise and jointly developing problem solutions in the form of projects; and it participates in trade union debates on labour policy and work intensification.

In the project “Preventive work organisation using sections 90 and 91 of the Works Council Constitution Act (BetrVG)”, the legal basis of works council action was investigated from the point of view of (timely) participation in corporate decision-making and the development of reliable labour science findings for employee-friendly work design.

In the “Prevention 4.0” project, the focus was on ways of shaping digital transformation through interest representation in a way that is appropriate for employees.

The project “Succession Planning and Transitional Arrangements in the Works Council” examines processes of action in transitional processes when there is a change of chairmanship within the works council body.

The “CAUSA-A” project examined issues related to safe and healthy working under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, both inside and outside the workplace.

Unevenly distributed biographical opportunities create structural disadvantages for entire groups of people, whose integration into the labour market and society is a central challenge for labour policy. Disadvantaging characteristics can be socio-economic, health and educational inequalities. Stigmas by outsiders and low self-efficacy expectations due to experiences of failure on the part of the target group often reinforce each other. In order to overcome these mechanisms, approaches are needed that support the target groups in recognising their potential, developing it, and ultimately changing their external image. Therefore, our research focuses particularly on strength-oriented approaches that support the empowerment of individuals. In practice, some promising approaches exist whose visibility is limited by various diffusion barriers. The research area therefore sees its task as being primarily to strengthen the diffusion potential of successful methods through scientific monitoring, evaluation and further development, and preparation of the approaches for scientific discourse and further transfer to practice.

Target group specific approaches are particularly promising. After a first step of stabilising the target group, these combine the development of necessary competencies with positive experiences to strengthen the group’s own self-efficacy expectations. One research strand pursued here is the approach of Social Art as an educational principle. This is based on personality strengthening and has high success rates in the labour market integration of people with multiple placement barriers. Here, in European projects, we support the transnational development of the method for country-specific problem situations.

In the “GUIDE” project – Supporting Health in Sustainable Employment, the focus is on the (re)production process of health in people in long-term unemployment, and the potential to activate individual health prevention in connection with meaningful (gainful) employment. In the “JobAct Europe” project, the further development and preparation of Social Art approaches is being pursued as an educational principle for transnational problems in the empowerment of vulnerable target groups.

The “ArtE” project focuses on strengthening an “entrepreneurial mindset” in connection with theatre methods to combat youth unemployment in the Mediterranean region.

In the “ViSAS” project, the goal is to transfer social-artistic youth work into the digital space on a European level, in order to make youth work in Europe sustainable and innovative.