One in three people in the world today suffer from malnutrition. The immediate and long term impact on individual health, businesses, and economies is profound. This widespread issue underscores the necessity for employers to prioritize and promote good nutrition within the workplace. Considering that individuals spend about one-third of their adult lives at work, the importance of integrating effective nutritional strategies becomes even more critical.
With Nutrition Connect's campaign "Good Health. Good Work : Prioritising Workforce Nutrition" we interviewed experts to bring forth learnings and business cases in this context. In the series of these interviews our first guest is Dr. Bärbel Weiligmann, Global Lead of Workforce Nutrition at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).
In an insightful conversation with Bärbel, we delved into the strategies, challenges, and successes of workforce nutrition programs, in Asia and Africa. What sets her apart is her experience and strong background in linking agricultural practices to nutrition outcomes, she’s adept at collaborating with multi-sectoral partners, especially the private sector to elevate nutrition standards for workers and farmers who are also consumers, in low- and middle-income country settings. Her expertise lies in fostering multi-stakeholder alignment to enhance access to healthier diets through workplace and supply chain interventions, as solutions in response to local challenges.
Understanding workforce nutrition
Workforce nutrition is a holistic approach that extends beyond simply promoting healthy eating habits. It involves ensuring access to nutritious food, providing education on healthy diets, and creating a supportive health environment at work. “It integrates nutrition in a more all-pervasive manner, into the daily routines and lives of workers, such that over the medium and long term it actually enhances their overall health and productivity” Weiligmann explains. This integration is structured around four main pillars supporting improved employee nutrition: Access to healthy food, Breastfeeding support, Nutrition-related health checks, and Nutrition education.
GAIN’s role in advocating and promoting workforce nutrition
Leading the charge against malnutrition, GAIN has been instrumental in promoting workforce nutrition. The right partnerships have played a key role in expediting these efforts. The Workforce Nutrition Alliance (WNA) was launched in October 2019 by the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) to help employers ensure their employees have access to and knowledge about healthy nutrition, breastfeeding support and nutrition-focused health checks. The aim was to reach three million employees in organizations and supply chains by 2025 and over ten million by 2030. The team has already reached 6,109,200 people over the four years since its establishment in 2019.WNA works closely with various stakeholders, including governments and private sector organizations across the globe, to implement these programs effectively. The focus is on sustainable practices that help achieve the desired nutritional outcomes, ultimately benefiting individuals and businesses alike by fostering healthier, more productive work environments and improved corporate bottom lines.
Reflecting on the successes of these workforce nutrition initiatives, Bärbel shared one of the remarkable initiatives of GAIN with private sector partners, the "Healthy Diets for Tea Communities" program, which has made significant strides in improving the nutrition and health outcomes for the tea-producing communities in Kenya, Malawi, and Assam, India. Having reached over 734,000 people between 2019 and 2023, this program has been exemplifying how targeted nutritional interventions for the workforce, can lead to substantial and sustained improvements in community health and infrastructure, while ushering economic prosperity.
‘Access’ is critical to the workforce nutrition programme's success, Bärbel explained. “By establishing multiple access points, for instance, with nutritious foods in communities and revised menus in canteens; ensuring an ecosystem exists at workplaces to provide education and behavior change to workers on eating healthy; providing safe spaces to pregnant and lactating working mothers for breastfeeding; and regular health checks, the workforce nutrition programmes’ is ensuring that the changes are easily adaptable and sustainable, leading to long-term benefits for the workforce and corporations alike”
With GAIN and CGF as partners, another mainstay activity of the Workforce Nutrition Alliance is the ‘Workforce Nutrition Masterclass’, a three-month, structured online training programme tailored for Human Resource and Sustainability professionals working in the private/ public corporations, designed for organizations aiming to enhance their workforce nutrition programs within the themes of, healthy food at work, nutrition education, breastfeeding support, or nutrition health checks. By the end of this course, the groundwork for an improved nutrition program is laid out, and that helps strengthen and streamline employee health and nutrition endeavors in organizations, and also significantly improves the lives of employees. The many testimonials and repeat requests for training are a testament to the success of this masterclass training model. So far we have trained 49 professionals in 20 countries reaching more than 110,000 employees. The workforce nutrition scorecard is used for 344 assessments in 48 countries over the last 3 years.
Despite these many successes, there are persisting challenges in implementing workforce nutrition programs more widely. Food is a forgotten issue at the workplace. Environmental requirements require a lot of attention from the private sector stakeholders. Aligning private sector stakeholders with the vision of improved workforce nutrition is challenging many times, Bärbel noted. It involves repeatedly trying to convince organizations to visualize the long-term value of investing in employee health and nutrition. To address these challenges, GAIN focuses on demonstrating the tangible benefits of a healthier workforce, such as reduced sick days and higher productivity, which can help significantly improve a company’s overall performance, she further elaborated.
The Evolving Landscape of Workforce Nutrition
“As the workforce nutrition program grows, it needs all partners from different sectors to work together more intentionally and unitedly. Even though this might seem complicated, we can make it simpler by making sure everyone takes responsibility for their actions and by having accurate ways to report progress.”- Bärbel
What does not get measured, can not be reported, and so can not be improved. Standardized metrics on which to report the performance of these workforce nutrition interventions and programmes in companies, are often missing. So, it can lead to misreporting, underreporting, or even a complete lack of reporting on some of the amazing and intensive efforts that companies are undertaking for employee health and welfare. We need to incorporate nutrition metrics right alongside the broader Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting frameworks, Bärbel emphasized. Structured metrics can significantly enhance transparency and accountability of nutrition programs, it will help to foster more sustainable practices in organizations and success can be demonstrated with clear KPIs.
Incorporating nutrition into ESG reporting will allow companies to systematically track and report on the effectiveness of their nutrition interventions. This will not only help companies align with global sustainability goals but also enhance corporate reputation by overtly demonstrating a commitment to employee health and well-being.
Effective reporting also enables companies to more accurately assess the impact of their workforce nutrition programs, ultimately fostering occupational health and safety. This is an area of continued advocacy for GAIN, to integrate workforce nutrition in internationally integrated standards for health and safety regulations that can guide governments and corporations.
“Our vision includes making nutrition a part of occupational health and safety regulations globally. This strategic move could potentially transform workplace health norms worldwide.” stated Bärbel
The journey toward integrating comprehensive nutritional strategies in the workplace is crucial. As organizations continue to recognize the significant returns on investment in employee health, the future of workforce nutrition looks promising. With dedicated efforts from entities like GAIN and CGF, as well as continued commitment from the private sector, the path to a healthier, more productive global workforce is clear. As we move forward, it is essential for companies to not only adopt these practices but also to innovate and adapt to the dynamic health needs of their employees, ensuring a robust and resilient workforce ready to face the challenges of tomorrow.
Read more on this at : (additional resources)
- Workforce Nutrition Alliance (Website)
- Humans Behind Workforce Nutrition: A Case Study Booklet
- Healthy Diets for Tea Communities: Programme Impact in Assam, Kenya, and Malawi (Report)
- Integrating Workforce Nutrition Into ESG Reporting (Executive Summary)
- Integrating Environmental Sustainability Into Healthy Food at Work Programmes (Executive Summary)
- Masterclass September 2024 (Registration)
- Workforce Nutrition Scorecard (Tools)
- Workforce Nutrition Case Studies
- Assessing the Impact of Workforce Nutrition Programmes on Nutrition, Health and Business Outcomes (Peer reviewed Study)
- The Workforce Nutrition Alliance Progress Review (Summary
