AB Lifosa implements special programme for further improving emotional well-being of employees
The last mental health training session to improve employees’ competencies took place in AB Lifosa on 17 September, completing the project. The session included a lecture on public health by Tomas Vaičiūnas, the lecturer at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences.
Titled ‘Health-focused behaviour of the organization’s employees, creation of a health-focused organizational culture and the PIN code for employee health’, the session was chosen in light of both the company’s previous assessment results and employees’ requests from previous sessions. Lifosa AB employees who took part in all training sessions said they were kept interested throughout, expressing their satisfaction with both the relevance of the topics discussed and the professionalism of the lecturers they heard from.
‘Mental well-being is a deciding factor with respect to not only employee health but also labour productivity and the psychological climate at the workplace. The value of this programme is obvious and its results are very positive, with employees expanding their knowledge and competencies that help them deal with the challenges and mental stress at the workplace and beyond. The place of work can effectively be used in an effort to improve mental health awareness in the society at large. We are pleased to see that Lifosa AB, as a major employer in the district, appreciates the importance of the issue of the mental health of employees and the need to address it, directing a lot of attention and resources accordingly,’ says Agnė Venckutė, the Public Health Improvement Specialist with the Public Health Office under Kėdainiai District Municipality who also coordinated the project at Lifosa.
The state-funded programme was launched by the Public Health Office under Kėdainiai District Municipality back in 2019. Three of the district’s companies took part in it, including Lifosa AB. The three-month quarantine did of course interrupt its smooth implementation, but the programme was successfully resumed and completed this autumn.
The first step of the programme was assessing the psych-emotional state of the company’s employees. This was done in the form of a survey of the company’s managerial staff, seeking to determine its emotional culture and whether its employees experience stress while also identifying any actions done right by the company as well as those indicating possible issues.
A target group of twenty employees was formed based on its results. This group took part in nine different meetings with two lecturers from the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, the psychologist Aušra Norė and the professional health specialist Tomas Vaičiūnas. Some of the topics covered during the training sessions were as follows: ‘Stress and its management: Interactions and conflicts at the workplace’; ‘Mobbing: What is it?’; ‘Occupational burnout syndrome’; ‘Health-focused behaviour of the organization’s employees, creation of a health-focused organizational culture and the PIN code for employee health’.
According to Asta Švobienė, HR Manager at Lifosa AB, the participants viewed the project very positively. ‘We are very grateful and pleased with having been able to offer our employees this opportunity to participate in the mental health training programme with the help of people from the Public Health Office under Kėdainiai District Municipality. We usually direct a lot of attention and resources towards implementing our own programme of improving the well-being of employees, but this additional project, with our employees also taking part in it, was clearly very useful. Its highly professional lecturers, the training programme tailored to our company’s needs as well as the action plan that results from it are sure to have a positive effect on both the participants and the company as a whole.’
Lifosa AB is part of the EuroChem group of companies, comprising over twenty-seven thousand employees worldwide. Most of them work in plants that keep production running around the clock. That is why the group pays special attention to the health and safety of its employees. Checks are carried out on a regular basis, with employees also participating in safety training and exercises. Occupational safety and health specialists perform ongoing monitoring of the workplace environment and analyse various factors contributing to it, while the employees are always equipped with the tools of work of only the highest quality.. Employees’ health and life insurance is covered by the company, too.
‘Each company wants to have employees in excellent health so as to be able to estimate the workload and the deadlines, to keep the production running as planned. However, the reality is a little different. Employee sickness costs a lot to both the company and the society at large. It’s not just the medical bills that need covering – there are indirect expenses, too, e.g. due to longer absences from work and lower productivity. This is why taking care of the health of our employees is our first priority and we pay special attention to prevention of various diseases and to employee training. This particular project was yet another step towards further improving the well-being of our employees in what has been a very challenging year indeed,’ said Jonas Dastikas, CEO of Lifosa.
In view of the key issues of concern identified by employees in the survey as well as the topics and workplace scenarios covered during training sessions and discussions, the lecturers who ran the training will be preparing a list of specific recommendations on ways of improving and sustaining the mental well-being of the company’s employees, as well as fostering a good psychological climate at the workplace.
