One in every eight sick days is the result of a psychological disorder. The Steinbeis Transfer Institute of Stressmanagement, Holistic Health Care and Preventive has developed a special program for small and medium-sized enterprises to significantly improve staff attendance levels and thus reduce sickness costs while simultaneously safeguarding performance.
The prevention program spans a number of modules and targets older employees and managers. The aim is to draft a management manual on how to ensure all generations within a business remain in a position to work, and to install a sustainable health management program for healthy, motivated workers. To this end, the experts from the Constance-based Steinbeis Transfer Institute visit the business and, as a first step, capture all necessary structural information. Based on this, next steps are planned. As a rule, managers need further training, as the attitude of business leaders toward older employees is pivotal to the working atmosphere.
Next, other employees are involved in the process to ensure smooth communication. It is then decided which program elements the business should offer. Questionnaires, group work and one-on-one interviews are then used to capture and assess in detail the scope of potential psychological flashpoints. Afterwards, the Steinbeis experts pull together a stress management program matched specifically to the business and help with the launch and ongoing development of a company health management program.
The benefit of all these measures is significant. According to studies, every euro invested in innovative, sustainable, preventative programs pays for itself sixteen times over. Aside from savings, there are also immaterial gains, with significant improvements in working atmosphere and worker motivation.
Horst Grässlin
Steinbeis Transfer Institute Stressmanagement, Holistic Health Care and Preventive (Constance)
The competence institute unisono Steinbeis Transfer Institute is offering certification as a “Practitioner in Body Therapy” (SHB). Provided in collaboration with the Ayus® Institute in Pfaffenhausen, the 18-month training course lays the foundations for a successful career as a health practitioner. Course participants receive training in 13 modules, enabling them to establish cause-and-effect relationships between the body, mind and spirit, to work with centers of energy in the body, and to recognize and deal with symptoms. They learn to view health as a personal experience, to consciously channel positive thoughts into therapeutic methods, to appreciate spontaneity, and to strategically use problem-solving techniques.
People taking the course also benefit from holistic personal development techniques that heighten self-perception by promoting posture, observation and therapeutic techniques, and by overcoming barriers to development. The result is a deepening of different abilities, thus forming therapeutic approaches to the development of personality, in-depth psychoanalysis and gestalt therapy, such as spiritual constituents and stress reduction.
Peter Schust
Steinbeis Transfer Institute competence institute unisono (Ulm)
It is difficult to imagine what life would be like these days without the Internet and the myriad of uses it can be put to. It has become an established part of training and continuing professional development, and offers many web-based knowledge-sharing options. The Steinbeis Business Academy (SBA) at Steinbeis University Berlin (SHB) now offers training to become an Online Business Trainer.
Internet developments pose tremendous challenges not only to higher education institutions but also to lecturers and instructors, partly for organizational reasons but also in terms of content and teaching methods. During the 6-month certification course as a Online Business Trainer, lecturers Alexander Ebinger and Bernd Schnücker meet this challenge with a mixture of classroom-based seminars and group webinar modules. They use these tools to convey the skills required to create, develop and run e-learning solutions and blended learning instruments, all specially tailored to group work. Upon successful completion of the course, the participants are awarded a university certificate and 30 credit points.
Anja Nikelski
Steinbeis Business Academy (Gernsbach)
su0599@stw.de
The Federal Association of German Business Consultants (BDU) and the demography network ddn have been bestowing the Baden- Württemberg Demographic Excellence Award (DEA) since 2010. The award highlights the exemplary achievements of companies that have found solutions to the demographic challenges faced by their business – solutions worthy of replication by others. Among the prize winners in 2013 was one Steinbeis Transfer Institute: the German Aerospace Academy from Böblingen, which received the prize at an awards ceremony on the island of Mainau in November.
The jury was impressed by a pilot project introduced by the German Aerospace Academy (ASA) to provide male and female engineers over the age of 50 with qualifications and a door back into the profession. The ASA offers executive master’s degrees as well as certification courses and seminars at Steinbeis University Berlin, spanning different qualification levels and previous experience. The award-winning concept teaches the fundamentals and methods of virtual engineering as well as tailor-made coaching and training for people returning to work. The other prize winners were Grenzach Produktions GmbH and the not-for-profit company Wabe eGmbH. The award comes with a prize of 2,000 euros, which must go to a good cause or social beneficiary.
Günter Monjau, chairman of the Baden-Württemberg BDU Forum, says: “This year’s projects again include some remarkable examples of demo- graphic initiatives submitted to the business competition we initiated. Overall, we can confirm that many firms – even if it’s not all companies, everywhere – are highly committed and take a highly creative approach to demographic change.”
Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Monika Auweter-Kurtz
Steinbeis Transfer Institute German Aerospace Academy (ASA) (Böblingen)
To answer the growing demands of patient care, Vitos GmbH and the Steinbeis Business Academy (SBA) at Steinbeis University Berlin (SHB) have embarked on a new collaborative project. In the fall of 2013, the first psychiatric care workers and trainees started an executive bachelor’s degree in Social Healthcare. The degree, offered through Steinbeis University Berlin, places emphasis on aspects relating to psychiatric nursing with studies running in parallel to company training and a special focus on advanced nursing practice.
The areas care workers now become involved in have changed due to developments in the economic, social and demographic environment, as well as changes in health policy. Given the new demands placed on nursing staff, academic qualifications are an important step forward in enhancing the professionalism of care workers.
Until now, in Germany there were no continuing professional development nursing programs culminating in a bachelor’s degree. The specialist content of courses now covers such a diverse spectrum of topics that – without the ability to reflect on scientific issues and corresponding working methods – it is impossible to relate content sufficiently to actual practice. The aim is to empower care workers to see eye-to-eye with other specialists in interdisciplinary teams.
The collaboration between the SBA and Vitos GmbH (the biggest provider of care to people with psychological disorders in the state of Hesse) allows students to receive nursing training and gain an academic qualification – to accompany training or as a specialist discipline. The degree, which lasts 36 months and is worth 180 credit points, fosters a fundamental understanding of scientific work and conveys the scientific and methodical knowledge required in (psychiatric) nursing.
The advanced degree modules look in detail at areas such as therapeutic skills, nursing science, health promotion and nursing as a profession. By the end of the degree program, students should be in a position to sit in on interdisciplinary specialist dialog and take a scientific approach to front-line work activities. The degree sensitizes students to the entire course of disorders and preventative approaches central to clinical decision-making.
Katrin Kunert
Steinbeis Business Academy (Gernsbach) Marburg Degree Center