Small-to-Medium Enterprises
Smaller businesses (business with fewer than 250 employees) make up the majority of U.S. workplaces, and half of all U.S. employees work at an organization that employs fewer than 100 people. However, small-to-medium organizations often have access to fewer health and safety resources such as health and safety professionals or programs to share with their employees. This has led to these organizations experiencing higher rates of illness and injury than their larger counterparts. In this section, you’ll find resources on how small-to-medium enterprises can build a culture of safety and health, research on the challenges and solutions available for these organizations, and what a Total Worker Health® approach looks like on a smaller scale.
Featured Resources
TWH Essentials Video Series is an 8-video series from the Healthier Workforce Center of the Midwest. In these videos, business industry leaders share their experiences with designing, implementing, and evaluating TWH policies, programs, and practices. The series will help small businesses utilize innovative techniques to tailor the TWH approach to their workplace.
Edx Online Course: Improving Your Business Through a Culture of Health. This free online course from the Center for Work, Health, & Well-being was developed for leaders of small to midsize organizations and shows how a “Culture of Health” can transform businesses, improving employee well-being while increasing revenue. In nine one-hour sessions, participants learn: 1) Ways they’re already involved in health, whether realizing it or not, 2) The business case and competitive advantage of a “Culture of Health," 3) How a “Culture of Health” reduces costs, increases revenues, and enhances a business’s reputation, and 4) Real-world examples of how organizations developed a “Culture of Health” and the lessons to take from them.
How Small Businesses Should Engage Employees to Achieve Total Worker Health® is a 1-hour webinar from the Health Links® program at the Center for Health, Work & Environment. In this webinar, Dr. Natalie Schwatka, Assistant Professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, presents the existing and most effective strategies for addressing Total Worker Health in small business. Material includes different organizational approaches to TWH, which approaches elicit the greatest employee engagement, and strategies from model employers in the Health Links network.
Research Projects
Small + Safe + Well (SSWell) is a research project from the Center for Health, Work & Environment studying small organizations and worker health, safety, and well-being. The Small + Safe + Well (SSWell) study is designed to understand how small organizations support the health, safety, and well-being of their workforce and how those efforts and perceptions affect health outcomes. The study findings (one-page infographic) demonstrate the importance of developing Total Worker Health® policies, programs, and practices in small businesses.