Winners of Malaysia’s Healthiest Workplace by AIA Vitality 2019 with Ben Ng (center), Chief Executive Officer of AIA Bhd (Photo: AIA Vitality)
The news is not good on the local work front: Malaysian employees are overworked, sleep-deprived and suffer from at least one dimension of work-related stress. More than half of those who took part in a survey on Malaysia’s Healthiest Workplace had less than seven hours of sleep in a 24-hour period (53%) or suffered some form of stress resulting from work (51%).
The AIA Vitality survey, now in its third year, had input from 230 organisations of different sizes across different sectors, representing a combined workforce of 17,595. Commissioned by the health insurance provider and modelled after Britain’s Healthiest Workplace, it looks at how the work environment affects health, performance and engagement with the job.
A worrying majority of respondents (84%) suffer from shoulder and neck pain, the result of long hours hunched over their computers, and report one or more musculoskeletal conditions. Money issues contribute to mental health issues, with 22% saying they have financial burdens. Fatigue shadows 17% of employees daily, yet 20% of those surveyed cannot decide when to take a break.
The survey also found that 90% of employees do not eat a balanced diet, 42% are overweight or obese and 45% of organisations do not offer any mental health intervention. As a result of staff not being at work for health reasons or who turn up but are unwell, organisations lose a total of 73.3 days per employee per year. The cost to each employer surveyed is RM1.46 million per year.
Fifteen companies that promote workplace health and create a healthy environment for their employees were named for the AIA Vitality 2019 Awards.
For more information, see here.
