Another day, another staff member off sick. This means rotas to amend, and gaps to fill and reduced productivity over all. Unfortunately, not all of us who are working are in the best of health.

Survey data shows that in Brunei Darussalam, 66 per cent of working adults are either obese or overweight; 29 per cent of working adults have high blood pressure; 11 per cent have high fasting blood sugar; and 45 per cent with high fasting blood cholesterol. In addition, 13.6 per cent of employees were smokers and 65.6 per cent of the non-smokers reported that they were exposed to 'second hand smoke'.

The workplace is therefore an ideal setting to promote physical and psychosocial health where peer influences and other mechanisms are already in place to communicate, inspire and facilitate healthy behaviours.

Employers and managers are beginning to realise that simply putting up a smoking-cessation poster and calling it a Workplace Wellness programme is no longer fit for purpose. Workplace health is a significant public health issue.

In a country where productivity at the workplace is more important than ever, more businesses are adopting comprehensive workplace health programmes that pay close attention to the physical health of their workforces and also to the staff overall sense of well-being.

The reasons are clear - in addition to increasing medical costs, poor health negatively affects productivity through absenteeism, workplace accidents and increased staff turnover. Therefore, promoting a culture that improves the health and wellbeing of employees is good management and leads to healthy and productive workplaces.

A healthy workplace is one in which workers and managers collaborate to protect and promote the health, safety and well-being of workers and the sustainability of the workplace.

This includes considering issues such as health and safety in the physical and psychosocial work environment, and ways of participating in the community to improve the health of workers, their families and the community. Studies have shown that a healthy workplace leads to improved staff morale, increased staff retention and loyalty to the organisation.

This would also foster a climate for innovation and creativity. Robust economic appraisals show that organisations who have invested in Workplace Health Promotion Programme have a return on investment (ROI) of up to $6 for each dollar invested.

The Ministry of Health is actively looking to support managers develop a healthy workplace programme for their organisation or department. Examples of action that can be taken include a healthy eating policy, incentivising health as part of annual performance appraisal, annual health checks, dedicated time for exercise, encouraging to use stairs instead of elevators, and various talks and seminars on issues such as smoking cessation, and mental health and wellbeing.

The benefits are abdundant and organisations throughout Brunei Darussalam are already capitalising on this. So what are you waiting for? Call that meeting already and develop your own healthy workplace!

Source:
@BRUDIRECT.COM

by BruDirect.com

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