19 April 2024 – At the April AmCham Focus “Vibrations of Harmony: Sport, Work and Personal Time in Harmony”, the closing event of the PROMETHEUS project, the project promoter and project partners discussed the importance of establishing a work-life balance.
The event was moderated by mag. Simona Špilak, Director of BOC Institute, Business and Organisational Consulting Institute. At the event, panel discussion took place with participation by Dr Andrej Naterer, Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor, Tamara Stanković from the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, and Anja Megušar from Knauf Insulation Ltd, in which they emphasised the importance of building trust among employees, the sense of investing in sports activities, finding a work-life balance, promoting a healthy work environment and mentoring programmes.
Dr Andrej Naterer presented the results of the impact analysis of the intervention and further outlined the objectives of the project. At its core, the company focuses on economic capital, which is not significantly different in its meaning and impact from social and cultural capital. Dr Naterer pointed out that “all three forms of capital need to work together, which is what the project has been about. At the core is employee empowerment. We found that at the end of the project, employee loyalty to the company was higher, indicating an increase in social capital, which the company can convert into economic capital. This means that caring for employees has positive economic effects.”
An example of a good practice mentoring scheme was presented by Anja Megušar. The aim was for employees to find solutions to their own challenges through discussions, and the theme of the workshops focused on fostering positive emotions, with employees exploring for themselves what evokes these feelings in them.
Asist. mag. Tamara Stanković highlighted the importance of sport and its impact on both personal and professional life. She added that “the definition of a company may be economic capital, but I believe that a company is its people. The first question that every person asks themselves is why it is so important, why we neglect taking care of ourselves. We already have a bunch of companies that are aware of this and are investing in the movement of their employees. Why shouldn’t a company take care of that? We all know that exercise has a positive effect on both physical and mental health.”
The PROMETHEUS project, which is supported by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism, is co-created by the American Chamber of Commerce as the project promoter and project partners Gender equality research institute Maribor, Merkur Ltd, Riko, industrial, construction engineering and leasing, Ltd, University of Maribor, Knauf Insulation Ltd, Public Scholarship, Development, Disability and Maintenance Fund of the Republic of Slovenia, A1 Slovenia, telecommunications services, AMZS, service provider for members of national automobile association and other users of roadside assistance, and Norwegian partner the Norwegian Automobile Foundation.
SOURCE: Project PROMETHEUS and AmCham Slovenia