I believe that the new corporate wellness push is not all that new and that similar health programs existed in previous decades but under different titles and categories. This is similar to how modern workplace management of mental health and psychosocial hazards is the “burnout” and “nervous breakdown” of earlier generations.

The Sunday Herald Sun article needs expansion to identify the causes of the ill-health. Sedentary prolonged positions could be the issue for drivers but for builders it may be fatigue or poor diet which require very different interventions. It may also be important to differentiate between ill-health, injury and disease.

I believe that any data from WorkHealth is likely to overstate ill-health because of the way the scheme is structure, the industries it services and the substantial assessment restrictions that were imposed by a substantial budgetary cutback.

I have no doubt that healthy happy workers are more productive but any evidence that may support my beliefs will need to match my experience by being exclusively Australian and be subjected to rigorous statistical analysis. WorkHealth has some years of operation to achieve this and would need to produce statistics that are representative and comparable. I am not sure that a scheme that seems to have begun as an enthusiasm of a WorkCover board member has the long-term credibility required to be as revolutionary as the Premier John Brumby claimed it to be.