Transformation strategies for healthy organizations.

Background: Healthy organizations are based on dynamic relationships between productivity, health and well-being. Understanding and transforming these labor-permeating relationships through health promotion actions is necessary in the present time.

Objective: To implement an intervention involving strategies likely to enable the transformation of companies into healthy organizations, based on a collective approach and seeking to boost performance and well-being at work.

Methods: Participants were organizations affiliated with an occupational risk management company, selected according to their size, degree of development of workplace health and safety systems and economic activity. We designed and implemented an intervention to evaluate workplace safety and health, to finally suggest strategies to enhance occupational well-being.

Results: We detected advances in the implementation of workplace safety and health systems, and also in several other aspects, as e.g. continuous improvement and self-care programs. Additional results include the participating organizations' engagement in several problems common to all, which led to the creation of a collective network. Intervention focused on training, follow-up, consultancy and collective development of healthy organizations.

Conclusion: Our reflections are grounded on a collective process of creation and seek to elucidate the potential and difficulties inherent to the implemented intervention, outcome expectations, resulting social cooperation networks and the process to formulate strategies to link work to health, well-being and productivity.