Planning, Assessment, and Evaluation Tools
How safe and healthy is your work environment? Do you have the tools you need to develop a cohesive workplace safety, health, and well-being program?
This page provides resources to help your organization create and sustain a workplace culture aligned with Total Worker Health® approaches.
How to Use These Tools
Some tools in this list offer information on protection from work-related safety and health hazards, while others focus on the promotion of additional practices to advance worker well-being. For this reason, individuals who plan, assess, and evaluate their efforts are encouraged to consider multiple resources when developing solutions specific to the needs of their organization.
About the Tools
This list features resources that can support the planning, assessment, and evaluation of programs, policies, and practices aligned with a Total Worker Health (TWH) approach. This non-exhaustive list of free, publicly available sample resources is provided for general knowledge and guidance. The icons shown in the description of each resource (also shown below) are provided to easily identify tools with information specific to planning, assessment, or evaluation.
Examples of Resources for Planning, Assessing, and Evaluating Total Worker Health Programs, Policies and Practices
Developed by the CDC National Healthy Worksite Program in 2013 , the NHWP Health and Safety Climate Survey (INPUTS™)pdf icon is a short survey to assess employee perceptions of the work environment, working conditions and attitudes towards supervisors and coworkers for developing a healthy worksite culture.
Recently updated in 2019, the CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard is a tool designed to help employers assess their worksites to determine whether they have implemented evidence-based health promotion interventions or strategies. The tool allows employers to identify gaps in health, well-being and safety programs, and to prioritize high-impact strategies for worksite programs on a variety of health topics.
The CPH-NEW Healthy Workplace Participatory Program 2.0external icon is an interactive assessment and step-by-step planning process that helps to create a new program or enhances and integrates existing programs. The program is divided into steps that allow organizations to effectively move through the planning, assessment, and evaluation process.
Developed by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Work, Health, and Well-being in collaboration with Health Partners, this measurement tool offers a comprehensive approach to assessing, documenting, and discussing worksite health assets. Dimensions of Corporate Integrationexternal icon serves both as a guide and a critical information source, driving efforts to create programs that sustain and improve worker safety and health.
The workbook, Fundamentals of Total Worker Health® Approaches: Essential Elements for Advancing Worker Safety, Health, and Well-being, will helps organizations and employers create new Total Worker Health initiatives or better align existing workplace interventions with the TWH approach. This workbook uses five defining elements of TWH to provide organizations with a baseline “snapshot” of where you are, to identify initial steps to improve workforce safety, health, and well-being, and to help you measure your organization’s progress.
The Guidelines for Implementing an Integrated Approachexternal icon show organizations how to implement an integrated approach to worker safety, health, and well-being. Developed by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Work, Health, and Well-being with real-world examples, it demonstrates how to: Inspire key stakeholders to support and participate in an integrated approach; Identify goals and objectives for an integrated initiative; Implement policies and practices; Evaluate and improve efforts to enhance worker safety, health, and well-being; and more.
The Center for Health, Work & Environment’s Health Risk Calculatorexternal icon is an educational tool that can help businesses and professionals learn about the association between employee health and workers’ compensation costs, and gain access to resources to improve employee health and safety at work. This tool can help organizations calculate how much they could save by investing in worker safety and health.
The Healthy Work Campaign (HWC) released the online Healthy Work Survey (HWS)external icon for organizations, including special content for Employersexternal icon and for Unions/Worker Advocatesexternal icon. The HWS measures work stressors (sources of stress at work, also called psychosocial hazards) including high job demands/workload, long work hours, low job control, low supervisor/coworker support, work-family conflict, bullying, harassment, non-standard employment, poor health and safety climate, and rewards.
Developed in collaboration with leading researchers and industry experts on workplace health and well-being best practices, the HERO Scorecard V4.0external icon provides organizations with an instant assessment of how their workplace health and well-being program stacks up to others nationally. The scorecard can be used to identify opportunities for improvement and to evaluate progress over time.
The NIOSH Worker Well-Being Questionnaire (WellBQ) measures “worker” well-being as a holistic construct rather than simply “workplace” or “work-related” well-being. The NIOSH WellBQ is intended to help researchers, employers, workers, practitioners, and policymakers understand the well-being of workers and target interventions to improve worker well-being, among other applications.
Worksite health promotion programs designed to improve worker health, such as those that help workers stop or reduce tobacco use, have traditionally focused on individual factors and not taken work-related exposures and hazards into account. Using Total Worker Health® Concepts to Enhance Workplace Tobacco Prevention and Control assist organizations in the development of other TWH approaches to address specific workplace issues.
Developed by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Work, Health, and Well-being, this validated tool covers six core constructs central to best practices for protecting and promoting worker safety, health, and well-being. The Workplace Integrated Safety and Health (WISH) Assessmentexternal icon measures workplace policies, programs, and practices that focus on working conditions and organizational facilitators of worker safety, health, and well-being. These results can help stimulate conversations for assessing and planning policies, practices, and programs.
YourWorkpath.comexternal icon is a website developed to provide individualized tools and comprehensive toolkits to help employers design a healthier and safer workplace. Resources include four Total Worker Health evidence-based toolkitsexternal icon that cover various organizations and industries, as well as both actionable and educational toolsexternal icon, to assist with planning and evaluation.
Types of Tools
Do you know what kind of tool you need? The tools in the above list can be used as examples of resources for planning, assessing, and evaluating TWH programs, policies, and practices. Continue reading to find out how the different tools can be used.
Planning Tools
Planning tools for programs, policies, and practices are essential for developing a strong TWH initiative. The list above provides guidelines and strategies that can help you develop integrated health protection efforts to improve worker health and well-being.
Assessment Tools
Tools to assess workplace safety and health can help establish a baseline for organizations to improve worker well-being. The list above highlights assessment tools to consider when developing a cohesive workplace safety, health, and well-being program. Some of the featured resources focus primarily on workplace safety or worker health, individually. These resources can be combined with others to provide a more comprehensive organizational assessment.
Evaluation Tools
Program evaluation is an essential element of effective, comprehensive workplace programs that aim to protect and improve worker safety, health, and well-being. You can use the evaluation tools listed above to assess an organization’s activity, program, or policy. Evaluation results can drive program improvement by providing key decision-makers with the reliable information needed to support decisions for change [CDC 2017].
Employers may be at different stages in implementing a TWH initiative. Routine program evaluation helps employers both monitor progress in implementing TWH approaches and make informed decisions about how to proceed in the future [Sorenson et al. 2013]. The list above provides resources that may be helpful in evaluating a TWH initiative.
References
CDC [2017]. A Framework for Program Evaluation. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/eval/framework/index.htm.
[Sorensen et al. 2013]. Integration of health protection and health promotion: Rationale, indicators, and metrics. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine. Journal article. J Occup Environ Med., 55(12 Suppl), S12-8, doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000000032external icon.
