A company that cares about its employees. Isn’t that a great company to work at? In this series, we would like to introduce POSCO’s health program called ‘Health Up’ which takes responsibility for their employees’ health. POSCO has been operating an individual program that offers health counseling, customized training, and low-calorie diet plan for their employees. But through ‘Health Up’, an integrated program that incorporates all of those above, POSCO manages employees’ health with more systematical approach.
Customized Diet Plan Care
It is truly difficult for office workers to control their diet by themselves. This is a leading cause why the ‘Health Up’ program includes the employee cafeteria menu.
Especially, the low-calorie (350~400kcal) lunch box was tremendously popular. Since the program is not limited to the ‘Health Up’ participants but is open to everyone by application,the program has been receiving an enthusiastic response. According to the employee cafeteria manager, Lee So-young, “There were many concerns about trying out the low-calorie lunch box of less than 400kcal menu. However, I was impressed by unexpected compliments and appreciations after it was released. I am glad to see the increasing number of employees participating in the ‘Health Up’ program”.
Individual Goal Set-up
In health promotion center, medical specialist Kim Shin-hye from Severance Hospital individually checks the participant’s health status. At first, through ‘Inbody’, a body composition analyzer, she displays every data including muscle mass, body fat and body balance in numerical figures. Combining this data with the participant’s recent health check-up record, she provides a 1:1 personal counseling to each participant. Also, the participants set up their individual goals by thorough consideration on eating and exercise habits estimated by digitized data and surveys. And there is more. Every week, the ‘Health Up’ program operates a one-on-one care by sending weekly challenge record data via email.
According to the health promotion center manager, Lee Kye-sun, she is “happy about this opportunity to let people know that personal health care is not about partial efforts but by proper balance of exercise, nutrition and medical care” and said “I hope every participating employee can maintain self-care even after the program is finished”.
‘Exercise Prescription’ Diagnosis for Each Participant
The current ‘Health Up’ program suggests a customized exercise program through checking each participant’s muscle strength, flexibility, endurance and other capabilities required for exercise. The program does not simply suggest boring repetitions of lifting heavy slugs, but offers an easy and fun program filled with yoga, stretching, squat, body pump, ABT with schedule options of morning, lunch and afternoon.
The dominating opinion of the participants was “it is less tedious since we share the pain”. Anyone who has attempted exercise understands how difficult it is to endure a lonesome challenge of losing weight. Nevertheless, with assists from trainers and cheers from peers, the participants rarely find the 50-minute program boring.
The ‘Health Up’ program benefits both employees and the company. Since health concerns can affect a worker’s ability to effectively perform his job duties, the employers would like to keep their employees fit and healthy. POSCO will provide more health programs to actively care for the employees’ health going forward. Please stay tuned for “POSCO, the Great Company to Work at” series to continue in the future!