Caixa Geral

Promoting Individual Responsibility for Health

Caixa Geral de Depósitos sensitises employees to health needs at the workplace and thus encourages them to assume more individual responsibility for their health.

The largest financial group in Portugal therefore relies on active health promotion and goes far beyond traditional occupational safety and health measures.

The broad-based support programme ranges from ergonomic measures through courses on stress management down to practical assistance. For example, the company also supports its employees in difficult economic times and in family crises. As a result, many employees have a greater health awareness and feel responsible for healthy working conditions.

The results from individual and group surveys among the workforce as well as medical data and findings from workplace studies by the technical and health service are used as a basis for planning health-related activities. External consultants conduct workplace studies twice a year during which room air and temperature, noise level, lighting conditions, electromagnetic radiation and tobacco smoke concentrations etc. are measured. Ergonomic criteria play a key role in designing the workplaces. Moreover, work is under way to improve the conditions for psychosocial health in the company.

 
"The influence of working conditions on employees and on the competitiveness of companies has been widely recognised. Nowadays, quality of life requires an environment of well-being capable of motivating workers. This includes awareness of problems associated with the pace of work, as well as with psycho-social factors. New ways of working, which are permanently underpinned by information, training and cooperation, are needed. Caixa Geral de Depósitos has promoted projects aimed at developing, improving and harmonising the relationships that exist between work, family, health and leisure so that all employees can together overcome day-to-day challenges and maximise the performance of the company."

Dr. António Maldonado Gonelha, Vice-President of the Board and Board Member responsible for Human Resources, Caixa Geral de Depósitos S.A.