BBCA and Workplace Wellness

, December 20, 2011

Uniterra-Botswana has been working with a new partner during the course of last year: The Botswana Business Coalition on AIDS (BBCA), a private sector coalition, mandated by the government of Botswana to facilitate and coordinate the private sector’s response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic in Botswana. It primarily works through its partner organizations to reach businesses.

BBCA sets out to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and facilitate the provision of quality and comprehensive care and support to employees affected and infected via workplace programmes. To that effect, it builds the enterprises capacity to develop and implement employee programmes in the workplace, including the development and implementation of Policies on HIV/AIDS.

The purpose of Uniterra’s partnership with BBCA is to build their organisational capacities, especially in areas of organisational management, program management and networking to enable BBCA to strengthen member (private sector) services to effectively implement workplace HIV prevention and support programs. One long term volunteer, Anouk Malboeuf, was assigned with BBCA in December 2010 for 12 months to strengthen their organisational systems and processes and develop tools. Among her tasks, she supported the development of a Workplace Wellness Policy Development Guide and a Workplace Wellness Strategy Guide to support workplace program implementation.

Uniterra, through sector funds has supported the implementation of a pilot project to mainstream HIV and AIDS in workplace wellness programs with 3.

Below are a few exerts from the Workplace Wellness Strategy Development Guide, prepared by BBCA (with the support of the volunteer) and Go Corporate Wellness Solutions, December 2011 (draft copy).

 What is workplace wellness? For an organisation to remain competitive in the market, the employees need to be physically, mentally and emotionally fit to cope with an ever changing environment. A wellness plan counterbalances work related ailments and gives employees a more positive outlook.

Workplaces are a great place to focus on changing behavior for a variety of reasons. First, people spend more time in the work setting than any other setting in an average day. Second, the work setting lends itself to policy and environmental changes that encourage and support healthy habits. Lastly, combined with incentive programs, worksites provide a rich environment to change behavior and increase the number of employees with good health habits and a lower number of health risk factors.

Employees are the greatest asset of any organisation. A widespread skills shortage in Botswana means that capable and fit employees are becoming scarce resources and therefore investing in employees’ wellbeing should be of a high priority for any organisation.

A complete wellness programme has three components:

• It helps employees identify potential health risks through screening and testing.
• It educates employees about various health and social risks.
• It encourages employees to change their lifestyles through exercise, good nutrition, health monitoring and psychosocial support.

The Guide documents all the steps to start up a wellness programme, the parties involved, the development of the wellness strategy and policy, the implementation, and the monitoring and evaluation of such a programme.

For additional information, the document is available upon request to Caroline Roger at caroliner@ceci.ca