Course Title: Corporate and Workplace Wellness
Part A: Course Overview
Course Title: Corporate and Workplace Wellness
Credit Points: 12.00
Terms
Course Code |
Campus |
Career |
School |
Learning Mode |
Teaching Period(s) |
PUBH1381 |
Bundoora Campus |
Postgraduate |
150H Health Sciences |
Internet |
Sem 1 2011, Sem 2 2011, Sem 1 2012, Sem 2 2012, Sem 1 2013, Sem 1 2014, Sem 1 2015, Sem 2 2016 |
PUBH1381 |
Bundoora Campus |
Postgraduate |
173H School of Health and Biomed |
Internet |
Sem 2 2017 |
Course Coordinator: Dr Siyan Baxter
Course Coordinator Phone: 0498 135 132
Course Coordinator Email: siyan.baxter@rmit.edu.au
Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities
There are no formal prerequisites. This course is fully online. You will need access to the internet, the ability to work online in myRMIT Studies, to organise your time, work online with others in small groups, and submit work on due dates.
Course Description
A healthy workforce is vital for sustainable social and economic development with workplaces representing a ‘priority setting’ within the global public health promotion movement. A major influence for this focus on preventive health is an ageing workforce that ensures a higher proportion of the working population will retire later and work longer with health problems, chronic illness or disability.
Factors affecting worker health and wellbeing not only relate to individual lifestyle and living conditions but also include a number of workplace factors (social and organisational culture, policy, environment and working conditions).
Stakeholder partnerships and corporate sector investment for workplace health promotion is strengthening alongside greater understanding for the role healthy workers and healthy workplaces play in economic growth and business success. However, although the potential for workplaces to heal or harm the health of the worker is known, sustained investment in workplace health promotion may weaken if better evidence is not generated to offset the challenges facing these complex public health interventions.
This fully online course is designed to offer participants insights from the latest research and resources in workplace wellness and health promotion. The knowledge and skills gained will assist you develop and evaluate programs designed to make a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of workers their families, communities and societies as a whole.
Key topic areas include the origins, terms and concepts of workplace health promotion, best practice guidelines and benchmarking principles, navigating the challenges in evidence generation, establishing a workplace health promotion model, setting goals to assess short term, intermediate and long term impacts and developing a program evaluation plan.
Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development
This course is offered as an option or University Student Elective to post-graduate students from various disciplines and contributes to the following Program Learning Outcomes for GD169 Graduate Diploma in Wellness:
- PLO 1. Synthesise and integrate wellness principles and strategies into life, education and work place settings, thereby contributing to enhanced productivity, the prevention of chronic lifestyle disease, enjoyment of life, and personal fulfilment.
- PLO 2. Will have the knowledge and skills essential to design, develop, implement and evaluate a range of specialised Wellness strategies.
- PLO 3. Be able to communicate to peers and others in a manner that suits the context, audience and message, and demonstrate the ability to share complex knowledge and ideas.
- PLO 4. Be educated consumers of evidence-based practice in Wellness and related disciplines with the ability to integrate research findings into practice, and identify appropriate research methods for specific Wellness research questions.
- PLO 5. Become holistic thinkers and lifelong learners who are able to integrate information across multiple disciplines and apply knowledge, skills, critical thinking and problem solving to real world situations.
On successful completion of this course you should be able to:
- CLO 1. Learn the origins of workplace health promotion considering both the biomedical and socioecological approach and demonstrate effective use of key terms and core concepts including wellness, well-being, health status, corporate culture, organisational capacity, capability, presenteeism, value on investment, return on investment, impact, engagement, mental health, partnership, benefits, program integration, determinants of health, health management, built environment, policy.
- CLO 2. Review the role of research in the field and utilise checklists and guidelines to critically appraise research findings
- CLO 3. Identify the challenges surrounding evidence generation in workplace health promotion and how it impacts study design, data collection and analysis. Consider appropriate methods to identify, measure and value outcomes and demonstrate how to interpret and present evidence using current reporting standards.
- CLO 4. Identify the key components for successful health promotion program implementation, including program modelling (benchmark principles), setting realistic program goals and strategies and deciding on program evaluation strategies
- CLO 5. Make connections with practitioners and professional networks and build up your resources in the workplace health promotion arena
- CLO 6. State the value of workplace health promotion within the global landscape and your local community
Overview of Learning Activities
Learning activities in this course include an introduction to the historical underpinnings of workplace health promotion, exposure to workplace health promotion case studies and resources, small group work, exploring current research on the impact of workplace health promotion, participation in online discussion forums, conducting a value analysis and preparing a proposal for a workplace health promotion program.
To help you meet the assessment requirements, a variety of interactive facilitated online activities and discussions will provide opportunities for self-assessment and feedback from staff and/or other students. Formal assessment consists of participation in discussion forums, a value analysis and a workplace health promotion program proposal.
Teacher Guided Hours: 36 per semester
Learner Directed Hours: 84 per semester
Overview of Learning Resources
You will be able to access course information and learning materials through myRMIT. The online learning platform includes discussion groups, group pages, email, blogs, wikis, and links to prescribed readings, recommended websites, RMIT library, support from study skills advisors, and various learning resources. Students are also a valuable resource for each other - their varied backgrounds and life experiences make for an interesting mix of people, promoting lively discussion and exchange of views on diverse issues related to workplace health promotion.
Overview of Assessment
There are no hurdle requirements for this course.
The assessments are designed to ensure that participants obtain knowledge of the origins and current practices in workplace health promotion, use appropriate terminology and concepts, demonstrate an ability to measure and value important metrics and propose goals that initiate changes in a workplace towards achieving outcomes of importance, as well as prepare an evaluation plan to assess an organisation’s health promotion focus. Feedback will be provided to students via assessments and ongoing online contact with the course coordinator.
Assessment Tasks
The assessment for this course consists of:
1. Online Participation – 25% - 10 x 2.5% each.
Your responses to lecturer posted questions/statements on the discussion forum and your comments and discussion of responses posted by other participants.
This assessment task supports CLOs 1-6
2. Stakeholder value analysis – 35%
Provide a written report detailing how to measure and value three (one short, one intermediate, and one long term) outcomes of importance to the decision maker (stakeholder) of an organisation. Choose from a list of different decision maker perspectives (human resources, upper management, finance), organisations (small, medium, large, multi-site) and outcomes (health status, employee satisfaction, productivity loss, health care costs, retention, healthy policy, corporate image, workers compensation costs, employee participation, healthy lifestyles, long-term sickness absence, healthy environments).
This assessment task supports CLOs 1, 2, 3
3. Workplace health promotion program proposal and evaluation plan – 40%
Position the outcomes chosen in the value analysis within a workplace health promotion model that includes personal, interpersonal, organisational, environmental, and policy considerations. Describe strategies addressing the key components of a successful program that can be actioned in order to achieve these benefits. Discuss program reach. List program goals with realistic timelines. Propose a question that assesses program effectiveness and develop a simple program evaluation plan to inform this question (including methods for data collection, and analysis).
This assessment task supports CLOs 1, 2, 3, 4