These CPD activities are designed to complement the webinar Understanding occupational health career pathways. They are intended to help with your occupational health career planning.
Activity 1
Unless occupational health provision adds value to employers then it is merely a cost and a cost that employers may decide they can ill-afford. Reflect on the benefits to employers of having an effective workplace health strategy. If you were to give a presentation to a prospective employer, what evidence might you use to demonstrate the value of providing occupational health provision?
The Society of Occupational Medicine’s Value proposition and Occupational health: the global evidence and value report will help refine your ideas.
Activity 2
What is attractive to you about practising within workplace health management and what are your career aspirations? Identify what you find fulfilling in your current role and what your strengths are. Are there areas might you develop further? For example, you may enjoy autonomous and hands-on practise planning, delivering health surveillance programmes and case management. Alternatively, you may prefer working at a more strategic level driving the organisation’s workplace health strategy through policy development.
Reflect on and evaluate your current skill set, noting your current strengths. Do you have any areas that require further development? How might you further develop your strengths and work on aspects that you could improve? How do you see your future career pathway developing? If you have any educational needs, how might you address these?
Activity 3
List your recent influences on the delivery of workplace health management. Reflect on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on workplaces and the physical and mental health of workers. Has this changed the emphasis of workplace practices, health management and service provision? Update yourself on the NICE guidelines on workplace health and management practices.
Activity 4
More CPD resources
Reflect on the social inequalities in health and the effect these have on individuals, organisations and the nation. How does this relate to workplace health? Consider how a fuller knowledge of social inequalities might influence how you deliver occupational healthcare.
The following texts will help you consider the benefits to individuals and society of reducing social inequalities:
- Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K. (2010) The Spirit Level. London: Penguin Books.
- Marmot, M. (2015) Status Syndrome: How Your Place on the Social Gradient Directly Affects Your Health. London: Bloomsbury Paperbacks.
- Marmot, M. (2015) The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Activity 5
There is an increased awareness of the importance of supporting people with differing abilities and health deficits to access and stay in employment. As Waddell and Burton (2006) highlight, work is good for health. Furthermore supporting people to remain economically active helps to reduce the burden on the taxpayer.
The joint Department of Health and the Department of Work and Pensions (2017) document Improving Lives provides an overview of the future of work, health and disability.
Read to this document then reflect on how occupational health services generally, and you specifically, might be able to contribute to government strategies to support people with disabilities to remain at work. How might you incorporate this into planning your career?
Activity 6
Effective leadership is integral to workplace health initiatives. These TED talks provide insights into developing leadership. Watch the talks then think about how you might become a more effective leader.
How great leaders inspire action, by Simon Sinek
Listen, learn… then lead, by Stanley McChrystal
