mtu Onsite Energy: Role-Model for Health Promotion

• Occupational health program `LIFE´ receives special award
• Convincing sustainable concept
• Bavarian Undersecretary for Economics presents awards to `Bavaria’s Fittest Companies´

Augsburg/Friedrichshafen, 7 December 2011. At this year’s TOP Health Management Award event `Bavaria’s Fittest Company´, Augsburg-based mtu Onsite Energy Gas Power Systems   GmbH received a special award `For outstanding commitment to Health Promotion´. The award was presented by Franz Josef Pschierer, Undersecretary at the Bavarian Ministry of Finance and Bertram Brossardt, CEO at vbw (Confederation of Bavarian Commerce), at the Bavarian Commerce Building in Munich. Dirk Edelmann, HR chief at mtu Onsite Energy in Augsburg and LIFE coordinator Melanie Edelmann accepted the award.

“Our health promotion program LIFE has been very well received by the workforce and it makes a valuable contribution towards maintaining and enhancing the performance of our employees over the long term,” explained Ulrich Kemnitz, Managing Director at mtu Onsite Energy Gas Power Systems. The company, which belongs to propulsion and power systems specialist Tognum, specializes in the development of energy-efficient heat and power cogeneration plants based on gas engines and employs around 350 workers at its Augsburg location.

Under the motto `Long-term Individual Promotion of Personal Responsibility´ (German acronym LIFE), Tognum has launched an appeal to the individual awareness of its employees on health issues. It started as a pilot project at the company’s Friedrichshafen location in May 2008 and was introduced at Augsburg in 2010. Since 2011 it has been in place at all of the Group’s locations throughout Germany. `LIFE Health Days´, are now an established part of the program, offering 500 employees aged 40 or over the opportunity to participate in the scheme. “The Health Days are an important element in the program. Employees get away from their everyday jobs for three days during which they can think about their own health and get help from experts,” said Tognum’s company physician Dr. Claus-Jürgen Gros.

The concept incorporates an analysis of employee health and risk factors, individual consultations, health promotion and incentives on health in the workplace. The sustainability of the concept obviously impressed the selection panel for `Bavaria’s Fittest Company´, which is why it received a special award as an example of best practice in the field.

TG LifeConcept and the Vereinigung der Bayerischen Wirtschaft e.V. (Confederation of Bavarian Commerce) introduced the TOP Health Management Award, which is also supported by the Bavarian State Ministry for Work and Social, Family and Women’s Issues, in order to promote health management in the workplace.