HEALTH EDUCATION OF MANAGEMENT STUDENTS IN POLAND

A manager performs many demanding roles, and the responsibility that falls on him or her is much bigger than in case of regular employees because he or she is responsible not only for the results and effects of the whole organization but, above all, for the team, for the people that work in it. This is why performing a management function is connected to a higher degree of stress and it is important to introduce elements of health education already at the stage of pursuing a degree in Management.

Even though the Labour Code [1] prevails in Poland and it determines and regulates in detail the tasks within work safety and hygiene and health prevention, imposing the obligations in that matter on the employer, in case of complex organizational structures it is often the managers (of highest, middle or lowest rank) who are responsible to observe it. It is also worth mentioning that this act defines only the minimum required standard; it does not address deeper questions related to health (in a holistic understanding) understood as a physical, mental and social wellbeing of a human being [2]. It is then worth pointing at the importance of educating Management students in health prevention. It is important to make managers aware how important their own health is in the context of management functions they perform (e.g. constructive ways of coping with stress and preventing addictions) but also how important the health of other employees is in the context of quality and efficiency of their work (e.g. the importance of rest or regular medical examinations).

The aim of the article is then to present the results of the research concerning health education of Management students in Poland. The authors have analysed the curricula of degrees in Management in some of the best universities in Poland. The conclusions from the research have allowed to formulate particular recommendations that may be useful in the process of designing curricula for degrees in Management so that the students be prepared to perform management functions in contemporary organizations as well as possible.

References:
[1] The Act of 26 June 1974 with further amendments: Labour Code, consolidated text of 2016.
[2] WHO definition. Health: the state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.