Rethinking occupational health for 2022

To continue reading please register or login to your OHW+ account.

The massive, perhaps permanent, changes wrought on the workplace by the pandemic mean we are now in uncharted waters when it comes to health and wellbeing, argues Matthew Bergmann-Smith. Occupational health practitioners should make 2022 the year they articulate and embed a new approach to employee health.
Before 2019, many employers were comfortably complacent that their workforce would be generally present and productive enough to keep their business going.
Absence management was a perennial challenge. Yet there was an equilibrium of sorts, as managers and their HR partners juggled normal sickness and injury absence, referring staff for occupational health support according to their capabilities.
Most employers strove to support staff as best possible, meeting their duty of care for their health, safety, and wellbeing.
Then the pandemic changed the world.

Still wrestling with the new

The Covid-19 pandemic brought successive challenges for employers of all sizes. Absences related to Covid multiplied. Managers struggled to keep pace with those off not just with infection but isolation or family care.

Knowing who was off and why, and when they might return to work, became a huge jigsaw puzzle.
Working from home became a sudden norm, so HR and OH scrambled to support employees, assess, and manage risks.
Office managers frantically rolled out infection controls to protect staff in offices and other workplaces. Testing responsibilities landed on employers, who then had to grapple with how on earth to manage test results.