OTGV #39 - Work Health
Broadcast Date: 13/10/03
Is the slightest increase of body warmth a raging fever in the morning of a workday?
Is going to work each day feeling like going back to school after a long holiday?
And after work, do you come home grouchy and fight with your family?
A yes answer to any of these questions and you may be suffering from job-related stress.
Hi Welcome to On the Grapevine with me Chong Ching Liang.
Last week the Health Promotion Board handed out its kudos to employers who actively work to encourage their employees to adopt healthy lifestyles.
However, as the cliché goes, it is a changed world.
There's no longer lifetime employment, in fact retrenchments always seem to hover round the corner, and workers can't even expect annual wage increments anymore.
This seems like a New Economy concoction that's guaranteed to affect workers' emotional and psychological well being.
Yet this issue is not entirely looked into.
The Health Promotion Board has a whole department dedicated to Work Health Promotion or W-H-P.
It has done sterling work in getting private and public sector companies to start health promotion activities at the work place.
However, W-H-P still hasn't moved into the area of looking into promoting better psychological health for workers.
And it is something that will need time to develop says W-H-P's manager, Mabel Chia-Yarrall.
"I think that will be evolving because as with Work Place Health, it started way back in the late 80s, so it is now in the 2000, it’s evolved and it has come a long way."
In Singapore, sometimes there's an assumption that a physically healthy person is BEST able to deal with stress.
Is this true though?
U-S's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health or NIOSH tries to explain how stress can have a direct link to physical illness in its web-site.
NIOSH explains that stress creates something called the fight-or-flight syndrome in us.
This means an alarm is set off in the brain, which then responds by releasing various hormones preparing the body for defensive action.
Prolonged stress means that the body is placed constantly on the edge resulting in symptoms such as clenched teeth, an accelerated heart rate or blood pressure.
This may ultimately result in more wear-and-tear leading to chronic illnesses and lower resistance against infections.
The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine reported that health care expenditures are nearly 50% greater for workers who report high levels of stress.
Mabel Chia-Yarrall says a recent international study suggests this may be true.
"Over 40 percent of workers feel they can't cope at their work. The ones who have no control at their work. They are more likely to have heart disease. It's not a cause-and-effect kind of thing but it contributes to the likelihood of having heart disease."
Singapore employers lag far behind their European or North American counterparts in looking after their employees' psychological health.
President of Motorola Singapore, Jeffrey Tan, suggests maybe the Asian culture is to be blamed.
"Within an Asian culture sometimes Asians tends to be a little more reticent and unwilling to speak up. But I think as a corporation we have been very successful in that regard; in terms of getting people to come out and say well, there really is no repercussion in this. We just want to be able to understand what are the challenges you face and to collectively work together in that regard."
Motorola like many of the western multi-national companies, have set in place an Employee Assistance Programme, or E-A-P.
An E-A-P uses a psychologist outside the company hierarchy who'll hear out an employee's personal or work-related problem.
The beauty of this process is it's conducted under strict confidentiality so there's no fear of repercussion when a worker seeks help.
This additional "listening ear" is sometimes an unavoidable alternative says Jeffrey Tan.
"Sometimes there are issues that will require a professional counsellor and we do have an Employee Assistance Programme which is part and parcel of the overall human resource support. And when necessary, we will get people to come in to help."
HPB's Mabel Chia Yarrall on the need to provide such a service.
"It's an important area to address and the EAP is an excellent programme to look at that because staff can go and confide to other people. But if you don't have a formal programme you could also identify some mentors. Not necessary their supervisors. It could be the canteen lady, it could be someone, you know who is not holding an official status. And someone whom staffs feel they can go to talk about family, their health or their workplace."
NISOH says a recent survey found that 77% of employers using EAPs experienced improved work productivity and reduced MCs by between 25% and 50%.
The local companies do try.
Changi General Hospital has an internal helpline though it doesn't have external counselors to ensure confidentiality says C-E-O T. K. Udairam.
"We have stress management programme ran by our psychologists and therapists. We have also got another programme for managing stressful situations that they have. So we have a whole group of 60-70 in the hospital, we have trained them and they basically have become buddies to people who are under stress."
Any move to enhance workers health must take a holistic approach.
Singaporean employers have done very well in the promotion of physical health.
But in this age of retrenchment paranoia and pay reduction frustration,
should more be done?
This is Chong Ching Liang for Newsradio 938.
===================================
Related Links:
Newsradio 938 (now 938Live)
http://www.938live.sg/
Health Promotion Board
http://www.hpb.gov.sg/
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/homepage.html
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
http://www.joem.org/
Is the slightest increase of body warmth a raging fever in the morning of a workday?
Is going to work each day feeling like going back to school after a long holiday?
And after work, do you come home grouchy and fight with your family?
A yes answer to any of these questions and you may be suffering from job-related stress.
Hi Welcome to On the Grapevine with me Chong Ching Liang.
Last week the Health Promotion Board handed out its kudos to employers who actively work to encourage their employees to adopt healthy lifestyles.
However, as the cliché goes, it is a changed world.
There's no longer lifetime employment, in fact retrenchments always seem to hover round the corner, and workers can't even expect annual wage increments anymore.
This seems like a New Economy concoction that's guaranteed to affect workers' emotional and psychological well being.
Yet this issue is not entirely looked into.
The Health Promotion Board has a whole department dedicated to Work Health Promotion or W-H-P.
It has done sterling work in getting private and public sector companies to start health promotion activities at the work place.
However, W-H-P still hasn't moved into the area of looking into promoting better psychological health for workers.
And it is something that will need time to develop says W-H-P's manager, Mabel Chia-Yarrall.
"I think that will be evolving because as with Work Place Health, it started way back in the late 80s, so it is now in the 2000, it’s evolved and it has come a long way."
In Singapore, sometimes there's an assumption that a physically healthy person is BEST able to deal with stress.
Is this true though?
U-S's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health or NIOSH tries to explain how stress can have a direct link to physical illness in its web-site.
NIOSH explains that stress creates something called the fight-or-flight syndrome in us.
This means an alarm is set off in the brain, which then responds by releasing various hormones preparing the body for defensive action.
Prolonged stress means that the body is placed constantly on the edge resulting in symptoms such as clenched teeth, an accelerated heart rate or blood pressure.
This may ultimately result in more wear-and-tear leading to chronic illnesses and lower resistance against infections.
The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine reported that health care expenditures are nearly 50% greater for workers who report high levels of stress.
Mabel Chia-Yarrall says a recent international study suggests this may be true.
"Over 40 percent of workers feel they can't cope at their work. The ones who have no control at their work. They are more likely to have heart disease. It's not a cause-and-effect kind of thing but it contributes to the likelihood of having heart disease."
Singapore employers lag far behind their European or North American counterparts in looking after their employees' psychological health.
President of Motorola Singapore, Jeffrey Tan, suggests maybe the Asian culture is to be blamed.
"Within an Asian culture sometimes Asians tends to be a little more reticent and unwilling to speak up. But I think as a corporation we have been very successful in that regard; in terms of getting people to come out and say well, there really is no repercussion in this. We just want to be able to understand what are the challenges you face and to collectively work together in that regard."
Motorola like many of the western multi-national companies, have set in place an Employee Assistance Programme, or E-A-P.
An E-A-P uses a psychologist outside the company hierarchy who'll hear out an employee's personal or work-related problem.
The beauty of this process is it's conducted under strict confidentiality so there's no fear of repercussion when a worker seeks help.
This additional "listening ear" is sometimes an unavoidable alternative says Jeffrey Tan.
"Sometimes there are issues that will require a professional counsellor and we do have an Employee Assistance Programme which is part and parcel of the overall human resource support. And when necessary, we will get people to come in to help."
HPB's Mabel Chia Yarrall on the need to provide such a service.
"It's an important area to address and the EAP is an excellent programme to look at that because staff can go and confide to other people. But if you don't have a formal programme you could also identify some mentors. Not necessary their supervisors. It could be the canteen lady, it could be someone, you know who is not holding an official status. And someone whom staffs feel they can go to talk about family, their health or their workplace."
NISOH says a recent survey found that 77% of employers using EAPs experienced improved work productivity and reduced MCs by between 25% and 50%.
The local companies do try.
Changi General Hospital has an internal helpline though it doesn't have external counselors to ensure confidentiality says C-E-O T. K. Udairam.
"We have stress management programme ran by our psychologists and therapists. We have also got another programme for managing stressful situations that they have. So we have a whole group of 60-70 in the hospital, we have trained them and they basically have become buddies to people who are under stress."
Any move to enhance workers health must take a holistic approach.
Singaporean employers have done very well in the promotion of physical health.
But in this age of retrenchment paranoia and pay reduction frustration,
should more be done?
This is Chong Ching Liang for Newsradio 938.
===================================
Related Links:
Newsradio 938 (now 938Live)
http://www.938live.sg/
Health Promotion Board
http://www.hpb.gov.sg/
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/homepage.html
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
http://www.joem.org/
posted by CHONG Ching-liang | 4:15 PM
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