Stressed out workforce means less productivity

Stressed out workforce means less productivity
By Shareen Han

Brunei-Muara - Employers must adopt a proactive approach in dealing with the increasing stress levels of employees in workplaces, a Singaporean certified hypnotherapist said.

It is imperative for employers to view the issues of workers' mental health in a more holistic manner to manage work productivity, said Dr Francis Or Kum Hoong, who was a speaker at Universiti Brunei Darussalam's International Conference on Business and Management. "Workers are getting more and more stressful," he said, adding that employment costs would increase if employers do not change their mindset in providing solutions to increasing stress levels in their working environment.

Providing solutions can include better time management, as well as communicating with employees on how to cope with stress, he said.

"An unhappy workforce with low team morale wills underperforms, under-deliver and eventually bring down productivity and affecting the bottom-line of profitability," he said. "Bosses also suffer when workers are stressed out," he added.

The founder of Singapore's Cre8future Hypnosis Hub said that pressure helps to keep workers motivated, but excessive pressure often leads to stress which is costly to employers, including loss of working hours of staff reporting sick or even absenteeism.

He said that workers and employers need to collectively realise that "many things happening to us and around us can affect both workers and employers".

Employers should change their perception of business productivity management by integrating stress management instead of stress prevention as a priority, he said.

"Health promotion programmes, whether in-house or through external consultants should be adopted," he added.

He said that greater awareness of proper and appropriate stress management programmes through public education as well as active participation of various change agents will help in better managing productivity in workplaces.

In his preliminary study on two focus groups of 10 members each, half of the respondents mentioned that they did not have time to relax because "there was just too much work to do".

The findings also showed that 75 per cent of the respondents felt that the workload and responsibility in their jobs make them feel stressed out.

Furthermore, more than half of the respondents were unsure on how to manage their stress.

"About 55 per cent of the respondents did not feel that stress will make them work harder and 75 per cent did not like stress at work because they felt stress will hamper their focus at work," Dr Or said.-- Courtesy of The Brunei Times