Jungheinrich has always attached great importance to the working environment and is a conscious and active employer when it comes to the health of its employees. When the collaboration with OneLab was initiated, Jungheinrich realised that it was the piece of the puzzle that was missing to get an even better effect from its efforts.

Jungheinrich is a large global group in truck and intralogistics with 18,000 employees in 40 countries. In Sweden, approximately half of the employees are service technicians and half are office workers and managers. The service technicians start from their homes to drive out to the customers for repair and service, which makes their work environment complex with a large amount of driving and working in the customer’s environment. The company is also undergoing growth, which periodically puts a heavy burden on the organisation.

Getting employees to take their health seriously

Jungheinrich regularly carries out various health initiatives and from 2021 a joint work environment survey will be conducted for the organisations in Sweden and Denmark. It has turned out that more people than they thought had stress and pain problems of various kinds. Despite actively educating all managers on work environment, it was evident that the measures taken were not enough to remedy identified problems.

“We realised that there were several things we could do ourselves to improve the health of the employees, but also that we needed a partner – an external party – who could help the employees who have health risks to take care of themselves by seeking care or doing necessary lifestyle changes,” says Lars Lindblad, HR Manager at Jungheinrich.

The health club created a new dialogue around health

The employees at Jungheinrich conducted a digital health check from OneLab and the results yielded surprising insights. Lars Lindblad describes that the result was worse than feared and that more people than they had thought showed a risk of ill health.

“It was surprising to us that so many were at risk of ill health and that in some cases it was a much bigger problem than we could have imagined,” says Lars Lindblad and continues:

“Several employees have, after being in contact with a nurse from OneLab, really taken their health problems seriously. Seeing people who you never thought would be able to push through a change in themselves have now done just that, which is fantastic to see.”

"Several employees have, after being in contact with a nurse from OneLab, really taken their health problems seriously. Seeing people who you never thought would be able to push through a change in themselves have now done just that, which is fantastic to see."

Lars Lindblad
HR Manager, Jungheinrich

Private life and work life are connected

The results from the digital health check also gave the insight that private life and work life are intertwined. What happens in people’s lives outside of work is also brought into working life.

“As an employer, we cannot say that these are private problems that we should not care about. If we are to be an attractive employer that not only meets the legal requirements, but also a company that people seek out as a place to work, we need to care about our employees and help them to sustainable health. Then we can also expect that they will become more loyal to us as an employer and that their commitment will be higher”, says Lars.

Lars and his colleagues at Jungheinrich are convinced that a good working environment is created by making the management understand that the employees’ competence is the core of the business and the most important resource in the company.

“Cars, stocks and computers are worth nothing without the employees who actually ensure that value is created for the company. Without a long-term and sincere plan for how we create healthy and well-being employees, the commitment will not be genuine and it will be felt immediately. Employees need energy to take hold of their lives and create lasting change. The most important thing for being an attractive employer today is probably that the employees actually feel that the company cares about their well-being in a genuine way. The fact that preventive work around health also contributes to lower sickness rates is of course also good, both for the individual but also for us as a company.”

OneLab complements other health solutions

Jungheinrich has previously carried out health examinations via various suppliers throughout the country. The collaboration with OneLab immediately became nationwide and the combination with the digital health check and the active feedback from nurses and doctors is what Lars highlights as a success factor for achieving better health in the organisation.

“The collaboration with OneLab means that we get an even better effect from our health efforts in the organisation. Having an external party that supports the employees who are in the risk zone for illness and health problems is, I believe, a strong motivating factor for few people to take care of their health problems themselves,” says Lars.

"The collaboration with OneLab means that we get an even better effect from our health efforts in the organisation"

Lars Lindblad
HR Manager, Jungheinrich

Lars continues, “The fact that OneLab, under patient confidentiality, both measures the health and follows up with those who are at risk of ill health, means that they can have a deeper and more open dialogue with employees, without us as employers receiving information about it. It creates greater credibility with the employees and a greater and more lasting effect overall.”

During the autumn, Jungheinrich repeats the digital health check to see if the efforts have produced the desired results and to ensure the employees that the collaboration is not just a “one-time deal”, but that the company continues to care about their health.

“Before the summer, we will also extend our collaboration to our Danish organisation for a parallel follow-up measurement to get a clearer overall picture of how the company is doing. And to give our Danish colleagues the same chance for better health.”