"leaders care": thyssenkrupp leaders are committed to healthy work

Absenteeism due to mental illness reached a new high in 2021. thyssenkrupp is now combating this trend: With the new "leaders care" initiative, thyssenkrupp is promoting the mental health of its employees even stronger. Leaders play a key role in this: They are shaping healthy work.

More and more employees are complaining about increasing stress, work pressure and growing professional demands. This is confirmed by the latest figures from the DAK: with 276 days of absence per 100 insured persons, absenteeism due to mental illness was 41 percent higher than ten years ago. thyssenkrupp is now combating this alarming trend: As part of the "leaders care" initiative, leaders are now consistently promoting healthy work and setting a good example even stronger. After all, supervisors influence the working conditions of employees and thus have a major impact on their workload and health.

Anja Berkenfeld, Head of Occupational Safety and Health at thyssenkrupp, confirms this: "We need healthy, motivated and resilient employees more than ever. We as leaders have a significant influence here, in particular by creating a good working environment and personal interaction".

Safety and health are management tasks

By leading in a safe and healthy manner, leaders should not only help to prevent work-related illnesses, accidents at work or even misuse. They should also promote health, performance and motivation of their employees. To this end, the Occupational Safety and Health unit developed a program that enables the technology company's leaders to ensure a healthier working environment in a consistent and structured manner.

"Responsibility for health and safety is already firmly anchored at thyssenkrupp," says Anja Berkenfeld. "With leaders care we want to put a special focus here once again, because taking care pays off - for employees, leaders and the company's performance". At the heart of "leaders care" are three principles that make up safe and healthy leadership at thyssenkrupp and which should guide leaders:

• Design working conditions that are safe and healthy

• Take care of your own health

• Maintain a good relationship with your employees

Practical guides support managers in leading healthily

Practical tips for concrete implementation have been developed for all principles. For example, leaders should show appreciation for employees through regular feedback and involve them even more in improvement processes.

In addition, special guidelines and materials support healthy leadership. A comprehensive self-check, for example, helps leaders to better assess their own leadership behavior with regard to occupational safety and health. In addition, a discussion guide was developed for a 20-minute #howareyoutalk. Asking employees regularly and honestly, how they are doing - and waiting for their answers - is simply part of the corporate culture and collegial interaction at thyssenkrupp.

Confidential counseling for all employees at thyssenkrupp

The company has also been offering its employees free "Confidential Employee Assistance Program" (EAP) for some time. This is discreet immediate help from external experts.

Whether it is work stress, conflicts with colleagues or superiors, or private matters such as family challenges, health or financial issues, experts from the fields of psychology, medicine and education provide unbureaucratic and active help.

In this way, the company also lives up to its responsibility and its own aspirations on a broad basis: Not only do health and safety at work have top priority here. In particular, mutual respect characterizes cooperation at thyssenkrupp.