DISTRUST EMPLOYEES' WELFARE
UK - More employees are preferring to keep their health or personal issues from their colleagues and bosses because they are worried that poor health will affect their career prospects.
A recent Aviva's Health of the Workplace study has found that 21% of 1,004 surveyed employees believe coming clean about their health problems could potentially impair their work opportunities. While 23% of them claimed they are protecting their privacy for not sharing any health issues, 11%said they just did not trust their bosses enough to tell them.
On the flip side, most of the 204 employers surveyed have adequate policies to single out employees with health or personal problems. Close to four in 10 bosses said they put in effort to identify issues faced by employees, while 42% have an open door policy to facilitate communication with employees. They also cited welfare benefits such as health insurance, group income protection and confidential helplines are being provided for their staff.
But employers' perception might not coincide with what was really happening among their workforce, said Doug Wright, principal clinical consultant at Aviva UK Health. "The breakdown in communication between employers and their staff means that health risks such as stress in the workplace are not being effectively managed," said Wright.
The lack of employee engagement, Wright added, might lead to employees turning down their bosses' helping hand when they are facing problems.
Only a minority (4%) of them said they would approach their bosses, should they be burdened by an illness. Five out of 100 said they might speak to a colleague about it. Six in 10 employees would prefer sharing their concerns to their partners, while a third of them said they would rather speak to their family doctors.
________________________________________________________
More quality Lighthouse titles
Get your marketing department up to speed with Asia's most read marketing site
marketing-interactive.com
Want to get on the right side of the procurement department?
Direct them to Procurement Asia
