By Ernest Nutsugah
Accra, June 28, GNA – Managers and employees are encouraged to pay attention to personal health and well-being as they strive to meet various demands at the workplace.
Failure to maintain a positive balance between professional tasks and other commitments outside of work, could be counterproductive, said Human Resource Expert, Iris Owusu-Manu.
In a presentation on the topic “Achieving Excellent Work-Life Balance in Competitive Business Environment”, she charged employers to explore options to effectively “take care of the well-being of employees” and address “workplace burnout”.
“Flexible work is linked to high productivity…No matter the policies and principles you [employers] put in place, employees, at any point in time, will think that you are not doing enough for them…So as managers and leaders, we need to start thinking about other activities to let people [employers] know that we care about their wellbeing,” she said.
With competition at the workplace, Mrs Owusu-Manu observed that some employees tended to “challenge themselves so much” to the detriment of their physical or emotional well-being.
She said managers should occasionally find out issues “weighing down” employees as “conflicting demands” at the workplace and home could cause stress and affect productivity.
The HR practitioner at Telecel Ghana urged employees to “check themselves” when experiencing signs of work stress, such as lack of energy, loss of interest in activities, and difficulty in concentrating on tasks.
Mrs Owusu-Manu advised superiors to create a “supportive environment” for employees, highlighting lack of resources at work, inadequate training, poor time management, and unclear expectations from job performance, as factors likely to cause work stress.
Underlining the importance of good work-life balance, she said managers should “set clear expectations, apply effective communication, and establish transparent growth and success criteria” to ensure employees were aligned with company objectives.
“We must make everybody feel part of the team when it [the company] is successful…We need to monitor and address the minor issues that happen at the workplace because it may pile up and affect productivity,” she noted.
Mr Carlis Arko, Country Director, Horizons Offices, conveners of the forum, stressed the benefit of employee well-being to business productivity.
He said the company, which provides furnished and serviced office spaces, would continue to maintain “an excellent working environment while providing world-class” services to clients.
“We are always consumed in our working environment whilst we pay little attention to our health…We need a healthy workforce to be in business. Without a healthy workforce we cannot offer our services to our business partners,” he noted.
GNA