Koehler Greiz: Managing health at work

“Health always becomes relevant when it deteriorates,” says Udo Hollbach, Managing Director of Koehler Greiz GmbH. He took over the management of the Koehler Group company almost a year ago and has introduced new ideas. These include a prevention concept to reduce employee ab-sences and help them to take good care of their health.

The aim is to improve the quality of life

Prevention has long been a proven and widely practiced concept. Even in an occupational context, it is important to identify possible health risks at an early stage and prevent illnesses from occurring in the first place. This is why Koehler Greiz held a “CHM Day”. CHM stands for “Corporate Health Management” and entails a variety of different measures that help to maintain and promote occu-pational health and well-being.
“We are all facing a longer working life,” says Hollbach “Therefore, not only we as a company, but every individual should be eager to maintain their ability to work and increase their quality of life.” He considers each individual employee, and not just the company, to be responsible for this.

Healthy employees are the basis for success

At the CHM Day, Hollbach and CHM manager Thomas Drechsler presented in particular two pilot services that will benefit employees with immediate effect. The first is free membership of a fitness center, so that everyone can do something for his or her body. Secondly, a company health insurance policy has been taken out to cover personal health care. It covers the entire workforce at Koehler Greiz. Personal health care includes preventive measures that are not covered by the stat-utory health insurance.

“We have big plans for the coming years,” says Hollbach. “To implement them we need healthy and motivated employees.” The measures are intended to contribute to this and are regularly reviewed. The feedback from the workforce has already been very positive. The well-attended CHM Day also illustrates this.