A new direction for employer vitality: from individual behavior change to a vital work environment.

First look yourself in the mirror, then improve the work environment, and only then ask something of your employees. According to René Lipsch, founder of OperaSana, that is how employer vitality should be. Scientific theories and various research institutes, such as Maastricht University and the Open University, concur with that thought. 'For 40 years people have tried to change behavior at the individual level. That has not succeeded, so we have to do it differently.'

For 17 years, René was a teacher of labor & health in higher education. It was very clear to him that practice hardly matched the scientific theories that had been around for a long time. At a crossroads in his career, René decided to enter entrepreneurship. And that with one clear focus: promoting employer vitality.

'97% focus on employee vitality. Interventions focused on the individual. That can be about mental relaxation, but also behavioral change. Many employers have been doing this for the past 10 to 15 years. From a fruit basket in the office to discounts at the gym to more exercise and less sitting. All thinking from the Prevention Agreement.

But science has been saying for years that those behavioral changes are nice in theory but don't prove to work in practice. You can try to influence behavior change, but over time people fall back into old habits. What has been proven to work is that you address environments in which people find themselves. Making the so-called working, learning and living environments more vital.'

'One of the biggest problems with scientific research is that research findings remain and practice does not pick it up. That's very common. There is no implementation. Or there is a grant until the first implementation and then it stops.

What we are trying to do now, together with science and practice, is to bring these theories around environmental orientation and its importance to the larger public. Let's move away from individual orientation a little bit more. This is not to say that people no longer get personal attention through coaching or the like. But we have to get rid of the idea that we are improving the world by doing so. Moreover, it is unaffordable to keep doing this on an individual level. That applies to health care as well as work-related care. If you create a vital environment, it takes some adjustment work once, but then you also have great benefit.'

'With vitality, many people think of the physical aspect. But it's about much more than that. If the social environment is not right, it will be nothing. The role of the manager is crucial. Showing vital leadership and being sensitive to the person behind the employee. Creating a vital environment also means a social component. Putting on more collegiality and especially a more people-oriented leadership.'

'To employers we say: look in the mirror of your own employer vitality. The time is ripe for it. We also notice increasing frustration among employees who have had enough of all the offerings. In which some also feel they have to participate. And employers are not happy about it either. They invest a lot of time, money and energy while seeing no progress at all.

Our call, now for Limburg and later for the rest of the Netherlands, is: dare to do things differently. Vitality starts with yourself. It is a process of awareness, where the employer realizes that he is responsible for shaping the environment.

This also immediately meets the new European Legislation. After all, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) imposes to deal responsibly with nature, but also with people and capital. That fits together. In a vital environment, you do the maximum in prevention (prevention), and better still, in amblition (promotion). The superlative of prevention. Not waiting for symptoms, but ensuring that people come into their own. Because then they can have the most!"

'Dare to take a new path that starts with yourself. Looking in the mirror how vital am I really as an employer. So we turn it around. Instead of looking at the employee, we look at how you are set up as an employer. We often see that this is perceived very positively by employees.'

Out of the comfort zone

'We try to get those employers out of their comfort zone. At first, taking a moment to be vulnerable. Looking in the mirror. In doing so, we look at areas for improvement, but also at what is already going well.

HR and Arbo have the same goal, they just look through different glasses. We also show this. So that the employer realizes: 'I am in the lead here, I create the environment. If I know how to change it, then I will get my people to go along'. And that's actually what science has been saying for 15 years.'

How vital are you?

'Forget for a moment all you've done with vitality. We are now going to talk about your vitality. How vital are you as an employer? That provides a very interesting mirror image. We hold those glasses up to them. There is a lot of potential for improvement. Luckily, employers often respond positively and say, "We would never have realized this ourselves."

We believe in creating a vital working environment, and this should be the new approach. This is why OperaSana, together with a large number of partners, is organizing an inspiring seminar on employer vitality. Time to give some more hearing to this important theme!'