Within the last decades, companies have increased their interest of their workforce health and well-being. Thereby a shift from a narrow to a broad ethic of workplace health have emerged. With this rise of interest into the employees’ health, critical sociological accounts have emerged, and questioned the value of these interventions for the workers. Some have seen this as an exploitive way to increase their workforce’s productivity and gaining control of their whole life. However, contemporary research has not yet shed light upon these health interventions place into their everyday-life. This thesis is structured and analyzed phenomenologically through the methodology and theory of everyday-life by Alfred Schütz, to gain insight into how these interventions become experienced by the employees. The aim of the thesis is to answer the question: How does the workers experience to be in a company, that provide workplace health promotion? The empirical data consists of observations of the health interventions and 14 interviews with works, from a Danish company with multiple health interventions.
The empirical and analytical findings in that the informants experience the training as a suspension of their everyday-life. This training leaves them with positive and physical feelings like: more energy, new perspective, conscientious, healthy. Thereby the training in the interventions is also valued to be accomplished after their work, because it helps them relief and release tensions accommodated through the day. Therefor they also return home from work feeling better. The participation is felt like and continuing ‘Sisyphus-like’ work to be done, to keep themselves healthy and repaired from stresses. This control of their body is being regarded as an instrumentalized way to let them enjoy their life and being able to keep working. The informants construct a typification of the ‘healthy employee’ as a productive, effective and less sick person, which they regard as more valuable to the company.
Last I show that the employees can be divided into four types of participants, by constructing typifications of their motives, experiences and relation to the community at the workplace. The types are the maintenance oriented, community oriented, training-in-itself oriented and experience oriented, shifting between training as means to ends or a means in itself, and the importance of community.