Move Europe-Partner - The borough Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg an excellent practice example from the German commercial service sector

The borough Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg has 255 000 inhabitants; it is the most densely populated town centre district with the youngest population in Berlin. Wilhelminian style buildings and large open spaces characterise this district.

The borough is distinguished by its multi-cultural citizens - with people from more than 100 different nations. The multi-cultural atmosphere makes an exciting and livable co-existence of different cultures and social classes possible.

Apart from that, Kreuzberg's mythic reputation and Friedrichshain's young subcultural scene attract numerous tourists. The district is also extremely popular amongst creative people, students or families but equally attacts young companies. The "Kreuzberg mixture" of living and working in the hood makes the area a sought-after location for fashion, media and music industry (Spree riverbank), and a briskly cultural and artistic life has established itself due to various galleries and theatres.

Information about the company and the cause for the health activities
The district administration Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg is a communal administration that consists of a political district office which is elected by the "Bezirksverordnetenversammlung" (a committee composed of the borough's representatives) according to the parties' respective proportion achieved in the previous election. A mayor and five city councillors each supervise one respective sector; every sector is subdivided into approximately five areas of responsibility and/or service institutions.

There are about 2000 public servants, employees and workers employed in the district administration.

In 2001, the district offices of Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg were consolidated; since then Berlin has been establishing and extending the health management for the district office Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. At the same time a concept for holistic occupational health management was developed and the process of implementation has been improved.
Clearly defined political parameters and an equally articulated support provided by the occupational interest representatives have launched a successful process of integration, interconnection and conceptual realignment for the configuration of a healthy company.
Due especially to the high pressure to cut back means and staff to a considerable extent it is indispensable to invest in the most important resource - the employees - and to consider health management as an integral part of the district's staff policy.

Organisation and aims of the particular activities
The occupational health management's ideal is the "healthy company". Considering that only satisfied, healthy and motivated employees work effectively, efficiently and come up with high-quality services, this ideal serves the company's success by creating conditions that improve health maintenance, job satisfaction and the employees' motivation. The health management is closely linked to the work safety protection and the organisation development as well as the staff and quality management. The factors working conditions, health of the staff and the quality of the provided work are closely linked.
A goal is to identify and remove health-impairing working conditions in a participatory process; furthermore, health-improving potentials and the employees' own responsibilities are strengthened. The promotion of health has been established in the district office's guidance policy.

A specialised health scientist was employed for the coordination of the occupational health management. Apart from that the district office established a Health and Personnel Management Consortium. The consortium operates on behalf of the political district office as a control unit for the overall process; the consortium's particular tasks are as follows:

• Supervision and control of the overall process of realising and improvement of occupational health
• Analyses of the health situation amongst the employees (analysis instruments are, for example, health reports, data on sickened staff, staff surveys, health circles or analyses of particular threats)
• Identification of particular types of strain
• Prioritisation of key aspects of activities
• Development of schedules and action plans
• Supervision and support of the implementation of stipulated measures
• Control the introduced measures' effectivity
• Health reports

Measures
In order to improve the reconcilability of work and family and to increase the possibilities of self-reliant work configuration there is an effective works agreement concerning flexible labour time.

At the beginning of 2005, the district office adopted a regulation on the protection of non-smokers which includes a general ban on smoking in all. In addition there are information leaflets and supportive courses available to those employees that are willing to give up smoking.
The labour protection and the occupational medical service is coordinated by the work safety committeee under consideration of the labour protection laws. For this purpose contracts have been concluded with an external company. The coordinated configuration of aims and agreements on distribution of work are guaranteed due to the fact that the persons in charge participate in the Health and Personnel Management Consortium.

The human resources development offers particular support to executives when applying instruments for personnel formation (for example employee-supervisor-meetings, feedback from executives). Furthermore, a comprehensive programme for the promotion of new top managers was developed since 2005.

The works agreement on constructive regulation of conflicts has been in force since February 2005. It has replaced the former works agreement which exclusively dealt with ways to handle mobbing. A coordination committee for the implementaton of the works agreement on conctructive regulation of conflicts was established. The works agreement provides the following: ten voluntary conflict counselors, for executives and the conflicting parties the possibility to seek consultation, conflict mediation and, if required, also external support. In order to implement the works agreement there are considerable trainings for executive managers and employees.

Another offer is the health and social counselling for employees and top managers which was established in April 2005. Since then there are regular weekly consultation hours offered by the co-ordinator of the health management, the addiction counselor and, if necessary, the company doctor.

After a very successful health day in January 2005 with several hundred visitors it was possible to establish courses and activity programmes (yoga, pilates, back gymnastics and mobile massage services) in the district office's premises permanently. Apart from that, the company's sports groups offers various multifaceted sports programmes successfully for many years already (including, for example, aerobic, table tennis, basketball and badminton).

An internal training programme has taken up additional trainings on various health-related issues (appreciating communication manners, giving up smoking, coping with stress, balanced diet etc.).

Concrete projects of the occupational health management take place in the particular areas of operation. The main goal in this context is the reduction of health-impairing working conditions; this is achieved with the help of analyses of strains and resources and team development processes, the improvement of individual dealing with stress and the maintenance and increase of capacities, health and job satisfaction. Measures for this purpose are seminars on how to cope with stress, coaching of executive managers and other trainings. The concerned employees can participate in the planning and realisation of these projects.

Strain resulting from stress and increased workload was mentioned often in the overall evaluation of a staff survey. Therefore an important element of our action plans is to support the employees in their individual stress management (behavioural prevention); another important aspect is to reduce stress by identifying and cutting back stressful factors (context-related prevention). Seminars on stress reduction are offered regularly. There are respective courses open to all employees as well as programmes available only to particular organisation units.

A concept on health-oriented supervision and occupational integration management was also established in 2007 in the context of the health management. This concept integrates both the task to strengthen the health-improving aspects within the staff guidance and the legally determined mission to introduce an occupational integration management according to § 84 para. 2 SGB IX. The concept is a guideline for the arrangement of a health-oriented management in the communication between supervisors and staff. In addition it regulates the procedures concerning occupational integration management. An important concern is to improve the appreciating manner of communication as a process between top executives and staff and to emphasise the importance of "guidance through communication". All top executives participate in comprehensive trainings in order to implement this concept.

Detailed action plans for 2008/2009 dealing with diversity management/ demographic development/gender have been developed in order to master upcoming challenges. An age and ageing management has been launched, considering preventive factors especially.

Analyses that have been carried out continuously show clearly that the number of people at the age of 50 to 65 suffering from physical and mental diseases has increased. The interest in informative meetings, seminars on topics like change processes, ageing and maintaining productivity, dealing with stress/burnout and managing the crossover from working to retirement is very big. The goal is to inform all age groups about physical and psychological change processes taking place throughout the course on one's life; changing stress situations can then be dealt with appropriately and adequately in terms of age.

Evaluation and results
There is different information material, for example concerning the staff structure, health reports from health insurance companies, various reports and data material that is relevant for the occupational health management. The health reports were established in 2004 and are based on this data and the reports. All material is evaluated and analysed by the Health and Personnel Management Consortium which also develops topic-related action plans.
The implementation of the planned measures is accompanied continuously; the results are evaluated and gained insights are considered within the further planning.

There has been a works agreement in the district office for many years already. It deals with addiction problems and clearly regulates how to treat employees who are at risk to become addicted or those who already are addicted - including rules on the treatment of the respective person's work surrounding. The specialist counselor for addiction and the addict assistants offer to chaperone executive managers, work groups and the parties concerned. However, apart from that the main aspect is preventive kind of work and especially considers our young apprentices.