For BMW, investing in proactive health work to prevent ill-health among its employees is non-negotiable. By continuously examining health, both physical and mental, as well as the organisational and psychosocial work environment, BMW gains valuable insights to act on and can follow developments in the organisation.

With the help of OneLab, BMW examines the health of its employees through a digital health check where the employees answer a medically validated battery of questions to evaluate their health. In addition, employees are offered, either every year or every two years, a health screening where a nurse from OneLab comes to their office to take blood samples and check blood pressure.

“The good thing about examining the health of the employees is that they get the chance to reflect on their own health. They get the opportunity to stop and can ask themselves how they are actually feeling and gain valuable insights that they can act on themselves to avoid ill health or to feel better,” says Emma Pettersson, HR generalist at BMW.

“The good thing about examining the health of the employees is that they get the chance to reflect on their own health"

Emma Pettersson
HR generalist, BMW

Greater focus on mental health

Working with various health initiatives is nothing new for BMW in Sweden. Among other things, they organise physical activities such as padel tournaments and football matches to get joint movement and time to hang out together in fun and social ways. They also have a work environment committee whose task, among other things, is to look at health, ergonomics and the work environment in general in the organisation.

Considering the troubled world we live in right now, BMW has now chosen to place a greater focus on mental health.

“Now that there are many things happening in the world that can negatively affect people’s well-being, we as employers want to do everything we can to help our employees feel as well as possible. That’s why we’re currently investing a little extra in working even more with preventive health initiatives around mental health,” says Emma.

Whether it’s work-related or not, mental illness affects how people can perform at work, and BMW wants to help its employees avoid that.

Among other things, they have brought in external lecturers who talked about self-leadership and how to create work life balance. They have set up procedures for meeting-free days and time-limited meetings to ensure that there is time for a break between meetings. Something that Emma believes has been greatly appreciated by the employees.

“We know that in society at large there is a lot of stress and high demands. But by continuously measuring our organisation, we can get early signals of health risks that we can act on to help our employees avoid suffering from ill health”, says Emma.

"We know that in society at large there is a lot of stress and high demands. But by continuously measuring our organisation, we can get early signals of health risks that we can act on to help our employees avoid suffering from ill health"

Emma Pettersson
HR generalist, BMW

Insights that increase awareness

Gaining insight into what the health of the organisation actually looks like and how it develops over time, not least when it comes to mental health, is something Emma thinks is very valuable with OneLab.

“With the help of OneLab, we gain an increased awareness of health, both among the employees themselves and among us as employers. We get insights into what we need to put an extra focus on, which means that we get a greater effect from our health efforts,” concludes Emma.