Employers need to help de-stress workers

According to the Star:

Private sector companies are encouraged to have in-house counsellors to help its employees deal with stress and other issues affecting their mental health, said Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen…

“Other than work place stress, families should also make full use of the tax exemptions given on childcare in the Budget to help manage family stress,” she said at a Yayasan Kebajikan Negara function in Permatang Pauh here yesterday.

Interesting…

 

I wonder how many employers will heed her call. Letters have already been published in support of Dr Ng’s statement, and I wrote about this in December last year. According to Kay Arr in Penang:

In my 20 over years of exposure in the area of human resource management, I heard of only few companies committed to address mental or stress problems. Others do not seem to understand the crisis faced by workers, but often interpret its manifestations as disciplinary problems.

To persuade such employers to engage in-house counsellors would need aggressive efforts. Many companies are not even paying anything more than the basic medical examination fees, and that too because the law imposes such an obligation. Therefore asking them to engage a counsellor will sound like a tall order at additional cost to them.

Come on, employers. You’re the one who puts your workers under stress, help out the little people!