A worker who does not feel well goes to
work unhappy, the performance is not op-
timal; he does not get involved in his work.
If the same worker knows that the company
is concerned about having optimal work
conditions, that an effort is made to address
health problems or that the company helps
to solve the health problems that he suffers
and prevent new ones, he will go to work
happy and things will be easier for everyone.
What difficulties did you encounter when
you tried to launch this plan and how did
you solve them?
The main difficulty is raising the awareness
of workers on the importance of healthy
lifestyle habits and trying to convince de-
partment managers to allow certain activities
during working hours (an essential condition
in order to secure the collaboration of the
Health Department).
My colleague at the Prevention Department,
Laura Garrochena and I have both partici-
pated in all the activities that we have orga-
nized. I think that if the workers see that we
practice what we preach with our example,
they would be more motivated to participate
in these types of initiatives.
Do you think that these practices could
be exported to the other regional offices
and business units?
I am convinced that these practices can be
exported to other regional offices and de-
partments. We plan to launch this initiative
shortly in Cadiz and the staff there is already
aware of its benefits. Even though we had
originally considered that one of the workers
went there to describe the experience and
convince them, at the end, this was not even
necessary.
Healthy tapas
contest
We associate going out to eat as an informal
meal. Nevertheless, this does not mean that
it cannot be healthy food and all we have to
do is to choose the type of tapa and try to
avoid fried or breaded dishes or heavy sau-
ces, for example. A good choice of tapas is
one which includes vegetables and less ca-
loric foods such as broiled turkey, chicken,
lean meat and which make tapas a healthier
option.
The Medical Department of FCC Environ-
ment in Malaga organized several work-
shops on Healthy Diet at the workplace
with the participation of workers from the
cleaning sector. The most successful ini-
tiative was the healthy tapas contest whe-
re the proposal was to prepare healthy re-
cipes which would be awarded a prize for
the healthiest and best prepared tapa with
the most attractive presentation. This was a
good opportunity for Josefa, Dolores, Ana
Mª, Mª Carmen, Araceli, Amparo, Paulina,
María, Francisco, Victoria, Rosa Mª, Carlota,
Dolores, Vanessa, Atanasia, Esther, Fermi-
na, Mª Pilar, Delia and Rosario who submit-
ted some of their kitchen specialties, in this
case, their best tapas.
