November 2003

The Role of Incentives in Promoting Workplace HIV/AIDS Policies and Programs

Conclusions and Policy Implications

The study found that the ASO initiative mobilized different types of companies to develop and improve HIV/AIDS workplace policies and programs. Although many managers were not motivated by the incentives to sign up, a significant proportion had an untapped sense of responsibility to act in the best interests of their employees by joining ASO. The data also reveal that companies who were eligible for the insurance discount made the greatest improvements. Thus this financial incentive combined with efforts to tap into managers’ willingness to respond to the epidemic can be important motivators for certain companies to improve their workplace environment. Financial rewards can clearly have an impact on company polices and programs, but in order to have a marked influence on the private sector’s role in fighting HIV/AIDS, future schemes should consider offering meaningful financial incentives for all participants at the time of recruitment and implementation.

Despite improvements at the workplace, there was no impact on employees’ HIV-related knowledge and behavior. One reason may be that the focus of ASO was on management adopting non-discriminatory policies, which help to safeguard workers’ rights but likely do little to foster sexual risk-reduction behaviors at the individual level among employees. Also, while TBCA offered companies a menu of materials and services to improve workplace HIV/AIDS programs, the inputs requested may not have been sufficiently intense to result in improvements robust enough to make a difference in workers’ knowledge and behaviors. Therefore, in future endeavors, more attention needs to be paid not only to participation but also to the program content of HIV/AIDS workplace activities.

Building on these findings, the initiative will be scaled up to 25 provinces in Thailand, beginning in late 2003. TBCA has received funding from the Global Fund to recruit 2,500 workplaces to participate in the new program, in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, business groups, AIA, and local nongovernmental organizations.

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This page updated
19 Oct 2007