Something’s got to give

As Singaporeans face increasing stress levels in the workplace and outside of it, HR leaders are getting creative in their efforts to help employees achieve a good work-life balance. Susheela Menon reports. 

The strategies a company adopts to alleviate stress in the workplace and also to support workers who may be severely stressed out reflects the culture of the company and can have a powerful impact on the kind of talent it attracts.

Jennifer Ng, human resources manager, UOB Life Assurance, believes confident, positive and happy employees best portray the company's "service-oriented" image. Most employees look for firms that are capable of showing sensitivity towards their workers, and there is a chance inattentive employers might not gather enough talent to forge ahead if they do not meet certain standards as far as employee management skills are concerned.

"With the current competitive working environment, we do see a rising trend of workplace stress," Ng says. Absenteeism through medical leave or urgent leave is one of the methods that a stressed-out employee may adopt, she adds.

"You can lose a lot of experienced people if you are not a nurturing organisation," Chew Peng Hoe, medical director, Parkway Health Primary Care Network, says. The downside of not being able to handle employee stress, Chew adds, may be too dangerous sometimes, as is the case with air traffic controllers who can't risk any stress creeping into their work as a moment's distraction might have serious consequences.

He cites a particular organisation that recognised the need for its employees to get support after they came back from a critical project that required them to visit tsunami-affected areas.

"They recognised that good psychological help was needed for the staff and that there were more people with stress-related syndromes and more who were taking sick leave."

Chan Phak Sung, director, international HR & corporate affairs, MindChamps, says he has seen highly stressed employees, particularly in the sales field when they have huge targets to meet.

"An overstressed work team affects the morale, service levels and progress of the company," he says, and organisations can help by providing opportunities to relax and de-stress but individuals must also know how to cope. "Perceptions of overstress can hurt the image of a company as it might then get difficult to attract the right kind of people to work for it," he says.

Stress buttons
An employee's workplace performance may be affected by personal stress or vice-versa, and it is very important to identify severely stressed individuals so they are able to get the help they need to bring about a balance in their lives and to perform well in their jobs. It is sometimes difficult to retain employees who either refuse help or are not given adequate support.

"It is their personal decision to leave when they feel they are unable to cope with stress levels," Ng says. She cites coping issues due to an increase in workload, new or unfamiliar responsibilities where there is low confidence in performing, or a change in reporting line where the employee has to adapt to the new reporting line, as the most common sources of stress.

Sng Yan Ling, manager, (Mental Health Education), Adult Health Division, Health Promotion Board (HPB), says stress may arise from strained relationships with co-workers and supervisor, a heavy workload, a hostile work environment, lack of involvement in work processes and uncertainty about the future - and too much of the above can affect an employee's productivity.

"This may be translated from a loss of productive man days resulting from increased absenteeism and reduced mental energy, which leads to less creativity and effort in problem solving."

Performance varies with stress levels, says Chew. In jobs where time gets less and resources are fewer, and where people get less support in their work and pressure from above is relentless, employees may be unable to cope. At this point, people may make more mistakes and slow down.

"They can't think well, get more overstressed syndromes like migraines, hypertension, blood pressure, depressive disorder and anxiety." Chew adds that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has stated depression to be the fourth most disabling medical condition in the world today.

"If we go at the current rate of progress, in terms of increase in stress, WHO predicts depression to be the second most disabling condition after cardiovascular disorders by the year 2020."
Chan says planning is important in any organisation. "We ensure we have the right type and number of employees as we move forward. We prevent a situation where we may have an unusually heavy workload and if such a thing happens, then I suggest companies must have good leadership and people management skills in place."

Prevention techniques
Sng indicates that the National Workplace Health Promotion Survey found one of the key limiting factors to having a Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) program is limited expertise within companies. The HPB introduced a certified training course in 2004 to help companies build on their expertise to implement an effective WHP program, and it trains an average of 200 facilitators from various companies annually. She says HR teams can incorporate mental wellbeing as a component of their WHP program. Empowering employees with knowledge and the skills needed to manage daily stress helps build individual mental resilience in dealing with long-term adversities.

She points out many quantifiable and measurable indicators that HR can track to see if their strategies are effective enough - turnover rate, absenteeism rate, sick leave, health claims, insurance claims and incidence of accidents at the workplace.

"If the organisation has in place support services such as phone or face-to-face counselling for employees who experience emotional problems, the frequency, intensity and type of service utilisation may shed light on the effectiveness of looking into employees' mental wellbeing." Sng also says psychological studies have shown a link between physical and mental health. Hence, HR teams could track physical health indicators such as the prevalence of obesity, diabetes and smoking as contributing factors to stress as a litmus test of whether a company needs a WHP programme.

UOB Life Assurance tries to promote a positive working environment with encouragement amongst fellow colleagues, and organises regular staff activities and monthly get-togethers to help their employees bond well. It also communicates work expectations clearly and leaves room for negotiations if the employee requires more time or resources to perform his or her work. "Having superiors engage their teams more effectively is another strategy our company follows," Ng says.

Chan says his organisation has created a good work-life balance. "We do work long hours but that's because the nature of our work is such." He believes in the right kind of people and the right kind of environment as the two major factors which define an organisation's emotional health. "We are gearing up for our expansion mode but because of the passion of the people and because of their interest in education, particularly education of kids, stress levels are not so high as to warrant solutions to it."

He also says a company that has unrealistic demands will create a lot of stress and that a lot depends on what a company does to create an environment that can mitigate stress. "Stress would invariably be there but we balance it well by hiring the right kind of employees and by creating a great company culture."

He says MindChamps has deadlines too but it also has good communication lines with employees, and skilled managers who know about people issues and workload management.

Chan adds that the organisation supports its employees if they have problems. "We coach them. Our managers are equipped with good people skills and some of our trainers are trained in counselling." He explains that his team is a implementing a new performance appraisal system, which will require managers to learn how to counsel and resolve conflicts.

"We have employee meetings once a month and we make the atmosphere light by indulging in games and fun. If I were to implement seminars or workshops, it would be to enrich my members and help them interact with each other and be aware of emotional health issues so that we prevent breakdowns from happening."

Breakdown plans
"Severe stress symptoms are hard to detect in a reclusive employee," Ng says, and adds that even with the support of good fellow colleagues and bosses, it may be seen as a social stigma for workers to acknowledge that they are severely stressed. The company encourages its employees to give feedback on making its workplace environment better. "Conducting thorough superior-staff appraisals also gives us an indication of the employees' attitudes in the workplace," she says.

Chan says if an employee were to break down, the company would show support for him or her, either in the form of long leave or with access to medical help. "For every kind of effort, there must be feedback and measurements," he says, adding that feedback helps tweak the system to improve and measuring a plan helps ensure its efficiency.

"All plans must have executive backing and before implementation, employees must be in the know so they are more willing to participate and give feedback." Chan says it is sometimes not easy to put a plan in action. "There have been times when I have faced challenges while implementing plans. Even if a plan is good, the company may not be ready for it. I have had to change my timing, step back and try again. We learn as we go along." He adds that as an employee, one can't change the culture of the company, but if the leadership has good insight, the company will follow the right plans.

"HR teams are monitoring stress levels and taking action," Chew says. He feels Singapore has very good companies that follow great HR practices to give their employees adequate time to recover. "I have come across many employers who support their workers when they are ill, get their staff back in shape, help them in terms of medical leave requirements and treatment support and deliberately make changes in responsibilities to ease workload."

Chan says if a company notices a high rate of absenteeism or low productivity, it must first see what the causes are. The reason could be the physical environment. It could be workers' individual lives or the managers. It could also be the workflow or a situation where there is not enough manpower, or where the employees do not have the right skills and so find the job stressful. "Once you find the reason, you can find the solution too."

However, he feels there must be long-term solutions. "Creating a conducive environment within which people feel empowered and are passionate about what they do goes a long way in preventing problems. Prevention is better than cure."