Chronic conditions and diseases have a substantial impact on the labour market and working life. This urges the need for effective job retention and workplace-based return-to-work (RTW) strategies and interventions, as this is a means of preventing employees with a chronic illness of moving into disability or early retirement pensions.

The proposed project will contribute towards the implementation of effective workplace health practices within corporate policies of enterprises in Europe, aimed at retaining and encouraging the return-to-work (RTW) of chronically ill employees. Comprehensive workplace health management and promotion (WHP) offers an effective approach combining individual and organisational interventions supporting employees with chronic conditions. Ultimately this may lead to a better quality of life and functioning, and an improvement of social economic outcomes.

The strategic relevance of this proposal derives from the opportunity to establish public health – private sector partnerships, and to strengthen the general case for investing in workplace health. This process allows for developing exemplary approaches to enhance job retention and RTW, and to encourage other sectors to improve their respective practices.

The proposal relates to one of the general objectives of the 2nd Health Programme, promoting health and preventing disease by addressing health determinants across all policies and activities. In particular, it will play a role in reaching the objectives in the current work plan. Health and Work and the defined actions. The proposal is to implement a campaign of action at national/regional level which would develop and maintain a community of interested stakeholders, both end user enterprises and supra-enterprise level stakeholders. This action would be complemented by dissemination activities at European level.

The methods involved for the implementation of the proposed actions include collecting good workplace health practices with regard to job retention and RTW targeted to chronic illnesses, bringing together public health agents and stakeholders from the employment side, and deploying an overall European campaign disseminating guidelines for good practice with national campaigns in 19 countries.

The proposed project shall deliver a mechanism for continuous networking at regional, national and European level by establishing communities of interested enterprises/employers who commit themselves to the principles of good workplace health practices and policies which enhance job retention and return-to-work of chronically ill employees.

The main expected outcomes of the project proposal are:
– increased awareness of job retention and return-to-work needs and benefits among the various stakeholders at enterprise and supra-enterprise level;
– improved standard of workplace health strategies and interventions aimed at job retention and return-to-work among the various stakeholders at enterprise and supra-enterprise level;
– improved commitment of the various stakeholders at enterprise and supra-enterprise level to invest in job retention and return-to-work based on workplace health approaches;
– improved workplace health practice of job retention and return-to-work, including improved communication, collaboration, and coordination between healthcare providers and workplace;
– improved exchange of experiences in the field of job retention/return-to-work/workplace health promotion (WHP), and enhanced cross-border knowledge-transfer; and
– enhanced policy development in the field of job retention and return-to-work in general.