CHB 1: Introduction and Objective
Corporate Health Building: An innovative strategy following the inevitably emerging paradigm shift of companies to strengthen employee health
The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting the global population in both private and working life with far reaching consequences. Next to global health, one largely affected sector is global economics and it appears that these two sectors are inseparably correlated with one affecting the other and vice versa. Indeed, history and the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that, if global health is endangered, economy will suffer and when economy worsens, global health may follow. While overall working life has profoundly shifted to ‘remote work’ as one of many confinements to prevent the spread of COVID-19, employees are being affected multifariously and a large number of businesses have been seeing detrimental losses in revenue. In fact, 81% of the whole working population is mainly working from home since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (Savic, 2020). While some consequences of these confinements show imminently, e.g. detrimental losses in revenue, others are suggested to show in a delayed response for both individuals and businesses according to current literature. In fact, there is a growing interest in recent research to examine the impact of COVID-19 confinements, particularly on individual health which has been extensively discussed (Kirwan et al., 2020). Recent publications have examined imminent consequences on individuals through different methods such as surveys (Ammar et al., 2020; Kakar & Lomond, 2020; Fallon et al., 2020; Moretti et al., 2020; Nieto et al., 2020; Schladen et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2020; Ugbolue et al., 2020) and projecting potential outcomes based on existing literature through meta-analyses and reviews (Chtourou et al., 2020; Kirwan et al., 2020). Findings show with strong agreement that COVID-19 confinements such as remote working have led to detrimental changes in individual lifestyle and behavior, i.e. reductions in physical activity, increased sedentariness, poor eating behaviors and mental health and many home working set-ups fail to provide ergonomic conditions, which in combination negatively affects individuals’ health both short and long-term (Chtourou et al., 2020; Kirwan et al., 2020; Moretti et al., 2020).
When individuals’ health is affected and at further risk, so may be their performance at work and hence overall corporate performance of many businesses, too, considering the strong correlation between (collective) employee and overall corporate performance. Indeed, it has been observed that many employees are directly affected by COVID-19 confinements, i.e. remote work (Kakar & Lomond, 2020; Moretti et al., 2020). Kakar & Lomond (2020) have stated their concern that the COVID-19 pandemic may be initiating a new ‘back-pain pandemic’ which would entail further economic consequences. Back-pain, classified as a symptom of musculoskeletal disease (MSKd), contributes a large portion to absences from work amongst other symptoms such as neck-pain in the Netherlands (Beroepsziekten, 2020; Volksgezondheidenzorg, 2020). Thereafter, MSKd has been argued to put a large burden on global economy (Briggs et al., 2020). Indeed, historical data shows that the costs for MSKd contribute to a large extent to overall health care costs, i.e. costs that businesses have to pay for sick leave of employees (Beroepsziekten, 2020; Volksgezondheidenzorg, 2020). Concerningly, recent publications reported that remote working and its inherent consequences (i.e. physical inactivity, increased sedentariness, poor dietary behavior, less than adequate home working set-up) has led to increases in MSKd related symptoms and increases the risk for the development and aggravation of such, among other health risks (Fallon et al., 2020; Kakar & Lomond, 2020; Moretti et al., 2020; Nieto et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2020).
Hence, global health as well as corporate performance both short- and long-term are at risk. However, it is yet unclear how pronounced the extent on corporate performance may be. To secure both individual health and future corporate performance, companies are hereby appalled to raise responsibility regarding their employees’ health and become active in addressing negative outcomes by increased ‘remote work’, since these conditions are likely to persist in the (near) future.
To better understand the impact of COVID-19 confinements on corporate performance, it is of considerable interest to further examine the consequences of remote work on employees’ health. Hence, the aim of this article is to review the current literature with regards to employee health and to elaborate its impact on corporate performance as well as to further investigate employee health through an online-survey. Thereafter, adequate solutions will be created through linking findings to existing literature and scientific recommendations. The solutions are intended to address the negative impact of increased remote work due to COVID-19 confinements with regards to physical inactivity, lack of exercise, diet behavior on corporate performance (both short- & longterm) through corporate health building. Health building represents a new and innovative business strategy aimed to both improve employees’ health as well as saving on expenses for ill/absent employees, ultimately securing overall performance and growth.
