Developing Compassionate Workplaces in Europe for the digital and green work environment to protect employees’ mental and physical health and wellbeing

Project Information

EU-CoWork

Grant agreement ID: 101137223

DOI

10.3030/101137223

EC signature date 10 November 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2028

Funded under

• Health

Total cost

€ 3 871 498,75

EU contribution

€ 3 871 498,75

Coordinated by

VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EU-CoWork (Developing Compassionate Workplaces in Europe for the digital and green work environment to protect employees’ mental and physical health and wellbeing)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

EU-CoWork aims 1) to explore and understand the influence of changing workplace organization due to the twin transitions on well-being, performance, job quality, and work culture for employees confronted with serious illness, family caregiving, death, dying and loss (EoL experiences) and their colleagues; and 2) to develop and evaluate tailored Compassionate Workplaces Programs (CWPs) as health promotion strategies to maintain and support employee health and wellbeing in the work environment, across different national and labour contexts in Europe. The core of this project is a 4-country cross-national mixed-methods intervention study with an embedded process and impact evaluation. The project consists of 2 separate studies that feed into each other: a) an international co-creative and developmental evaluation of tailored CWPs, and b) an international mixed methods process and impact evaluation combining a timed series of quantitative panel surveys, qualitative interviews and fieldwork, and policy document analysis. Tailored CWPs will be developed in 12 European workplaces. EU-CoWork will provide findings about workplace compassion and mental and physical health and wellbeing of European employees in several working sectors, and the relationship between workplace characteristics and compassion at work and the health and wellbeing of employees confronted (directly or indirectly) with EoL experiences. The project will collect data about the relationship between employees’ EoL experiences, the company’s responses to these experiences and company and employee performance, and about the variability in workplace policies in Europe that address such risk factors. EU-CoWork will thereby offer insights and building blocks needed to create work environments that ensure adequate support and policy and that are tailored to counter-balance experiences that may otherwise exacerbate the risk for adverse mental health and wellbeing outcomes for employees.
Social sciences and humanities play a central role in EU-CoWork by examining how cultural, social, and organizational contexts shape employee experiences with illness, caregiving, and end-of-life in the workplace. Sociology and psychology help explore employee well-being, compassion from and for others, job quality, and work culture, and inform the development of Compassionate Workplace Programs and their implementation across diverse national and labour contexts. The economists will evaluate the cost-effectiveness of Compassionate Workplace Programs, comparing their benefits for employee health and wellbeing with organizational costs, to ensure they provide sustainable value for workplaces.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first reporting period, significant progress was made in both the technical and scientific aspects of EU-CoWork. Key technical achievements to guide the co-creation of Compassionate Workplace Programs include the recruitment of a heterogeneous group of intervention sites (i.e. workplaces differing in workplace population (mostly male, mostly female or mixed), transition type (green, digital or both), and company size (medium or large)), the development of practical tools (such as the inspirational resource and facilitator manual), the recruitment and training of facilitators, and the establishment of a Community of Practice for facilitators and researchers. In parallel, detailed research protocols were finalized to guide the developmental evaluation and co-creative process, and the meta-process evaluation and cost-effectiveness study, ethics approvals were obtained, the international baseline survey questions were finalized, and interview grids were drafted. The baseline quantitative data collection was launched across some sites in May 2025, qualitative data was gathered, including the contextual assessment of the workplaces, and workplace policy documents were collected. The main activities carried out are summarized below:
Main technical and scientific activities carried out during this period:
- A digital inspiration resource, a facilitator manual and a facilitation and co-creation toolbox were developed to support the development of Compassionate Workplace Programs (CWPs) [WP2]
- A protocol for the development and developmental evaluation of the compassionate workplace programs was written by the consortium [WP2]
- 12 diverse workplaces were recruited for the CWP development
- 5 dedicated facilitators and 4 facilitator/evaluators were recruited and trained in a 3-day training [WP2]
- A Community of Practice (CoP) for the facilitators and facilitators-evaluators across the different countries was established and meets on average every six weeks.
- Facilitated co-creation of the CWPs was initiated in 10 workplaces [WP2]
- A research protocol was completed to provide concrete guidance for the different data collection methods, and specific study protocols with data-collection methods and instruments were developed for: 1) Policy document review with instruments, 2) Questionnaire Survey, 3) Implementation process study, 4) qualitative data collections and instruments, 5) Data collections about workplace expenses, 6) Meta-process data collection [WP3]
- All teams obtained ethics approval for the study [WP3]
- A general evaluation plan for the different intervention workplaces was developed [WP4]
- A protocol for the meta-process evaluation and monitoring was developed [WP4]
- A Data Analysis Plan for Observational Data was developed [WP5]
- Baseline data collection has started (currently in 5 workplaces, underway or planned in the rest [WP5]
- A longitudinal data analysis plan was developed for each of the data sources, including qualitative, quantitative and mixed- methods analyses [WP6]
- A data analysis plan for the cost-effectiveness analysis was developed [WP7]
- A Dissemination Exploitation and Communication plan for the project was developed [WP8]
- More than 45 dissemination and communication activities [WP8]
- First ethics report [WP9]-

Milestone progress
All planned milestones for reporting period 1 (Milestones 1-6 and 15) have been achieved by their anticipated due date.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Not applicable yet

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