Using Conjoint Analysis to Elicit Preferences for Occupational Health Services in Small and Microenterprises

In particular small and medium sized enterprises (SME) benefit from occupational health services as these may help reducing potential costs of accidents or illnesses at work, support staff retention and recruitment, and decrease wage costs. Nevertheless SME and especially microenterprises (<10 persons employed) rarely offer these services to their employees. The innovation incubator’s project “Healthy at Work” offers research-based advice to private service units to support SME with the supply of occupational health services the region of Luneburg. This contribution describes the method of eliciting preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) of SME for occupational health services using an Adaptive Choice Based Conjoint Analysis combined with a short WTP questionnaire. The results reveal that a comprehensive service package tailored to the needs of the individual company should be offered on a pay per use basis. The private supplier would benefit from cooperation with a social insurance provider, either health insurance fund or occupational accident insurer. Further, we find that employers are willing to pay for services, WTP decreases with company size, however. It is therefore of particular importance to offer appealing and affordable occupational health services to microenterprises, preferably in cooperation with social insurance providers.