The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has specifically funded model projects relating to occupational health and safety since 1993. The model projects assist employers in practical implementation of work safety measures and in structuring working conditions at their facilities. By publishing and distributing available knowledge, the projects contribute to reducing work-related health risks and disease in Germany’s production, crafts and trades and services sectors. They thus boost the competitive standing of German business. This involves the development, testing and long-term implementation of best-practice examples for maintaining people’s working capacity and employability.
New Quality of Work Initiative
The New Quality of Work Initiative is a joint initiative in which stakeholders from government, business, research and civil society have joined forces to address questions of how working conditions can be made both more attractive, motivating and healthy for employees and more viable for employers. The New Quality of Work Initiative cuts across what are normally conflicting interests by providing an independent, non-party-political platform with broad employer and union support for constructive, practice-focused exchange.
The New Quality of Work Initiative brings together all those seeking to shape employment in Germany, providing a wide range of opportunities for exchange, low-threshold and practice-focused advice and information services, practical tools, funding programmes, and a website featuring a best-practice database with inspiring real-life examples. The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, employer associations and unions, chambers, the Federal Employment Agency, the Conferences of Ministers for Labour and Social Affairs and the social insurance funds work closely together to this end.
Demographic change and structural upheavals in the labour market make it increasingly urgent for employers and public agencies to position themselves as attractive employers as they compete for skilled labour and to be innovative in recruitment. Developments in the labour force place special importance on investing in employee loyalty and establishing an employee-centric organisational culture. Shaping good, healthy and motivation working conditions for employees is a key element here.
This is where the New Quality of Work Initiative comes in. Its central aim is to raise awareness in the business world for these interdependencies and for low-threshold, practice-focused solutions.
With a view to the challenges facing businesses, public authorities and employees, the New Quality of Work Initiative has identified four key human resources policy action areas in which it develops and offers low-threshold support and advice:
Personnel management: Personnel or human resources management faces a more exacting requirements profile necessitating a good leadership culture and coordination of human resources planning and strategy with organisational needs and individual abilities and aptitudes.
Equal opportunities and diversity: Good human resources policy today makes the most of diversity. Teams that are diverse in age, gender, social and cultural background, abilities, experience and qualifications are able to work more innovatively and successfully.
Health: Health and work-life balance are important factors in motivation, performance and innovation. Future-focused organisations apply ongoing structural prevention while fostering individual coping strategies. The physical and mental health of the workforce and organisational resilience are key success factors.
Knowledge and competencies: Knowledge is a key to lasting corporate success and the basis for innovation in German industry. Ongoing training and lifelong learning ensure that expertise is retained and put to the best possible use.
These action areas likewise define the structure for the issues covered and the information and advice provided under the New Quality of Work Initiative. Fair and reliable working conditions represent the basis for all four action areas and hence for the ‘enterprise of the future’ – for employers and employees alike. The work of the New Quality of Work Initiative is supplemented by an ESF programme,
‘unternehmensWert: Mensch’. This supports small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with professional consulting to help identify their human resources needs and develop tailored human resources policies, covering issues such as health promotion, flexible working hours, work-life balance and employee initial and further training. The consulting is provided by experienced experts and is adapted to the needs of each business. Employers are required to involve employees in the change process.
Another focus of the initiative is on promoting regional activities through its network structures to highlight the importance and aims of the issues covered and raise public awareness to them. This is based on the conviction that SMEs primarily operate through regional networks and are therefore best addressed at regional level. The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs will also continue to fund projects, although with greater focus on transfer and model projects designed to develop business-related approaches and instruments to safeguard working capacity and enhance employability.
In summary, after 10 years of intensive effort, the New Quality of Work Initiative has now undergone a successful overhaul without interrupting its everyday activities. In conjunction with the institutions
supporting it and its partner networks, the initiative plays a major part in the achievement of a ‘new quality of work’ focusing both on employees’ working capacity and employability and on companies’
competitiveness in the face of demographic change.
Information
If you have questions about health and safety or accident prevention you can contact several places for advice:
In each of Germany’s Länder there is a special health and safety authority: the Amt für Arbeitsschutz (health and safety office) or the
Gewerbeaufsichtsamt (labour inspectorate).
The Federal Institute of Occupational Health and Safety offers an information line on health and safety at work, available Mondays to Fridays 8 am to 4.30 pm on 0180 3214321 (€0.09 per minute within Germany).
The occupational accident insurance funds each have their own technical inspectorates.
The Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin (Federal Institute of Occupational Health and Safety) conducts research and provides advice and training on all aspects of health and safety at work.
0 500 1.000 1.500 2.000 2.500 3.000 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Reportable occupational accidents: Absolute numbers and per 1,000 full-time workers 1960-2010
Reportable occupational accidents (1.000)
Reportable occupational accidents per 1.000 full-time workers From 1991: including data from
former East Germany
Reportable occupational accidents
Reportable occupational accidents per 1.000 full-time workers
1.007.684
26,0 UK|BC