SA workers cracking under stress

Tue, 15 May 2007 Business News iafrica.com

Increasing numbers of South Africans are taking sick leave because of psychological illness, costing companies over R1-billion a year, management consultants said on Tuesday.

"About R19-billion was lost due to sick absenteeism in South Africa last year, and R1.2-billion of that was lost by companies who had to pay the direct costs of sick leave due to psychological reasons," said Johnny Johnson, chief executive of Corporate Absenteeism Management Solutions (CAMS).

CAMS studied a sample of over 100 000 employees in more than 60 companies, and examined the medical certificates presented by employees after returning from sick leave.

Depression included

They found that between March 2005 and the beginning of March 2006, 45 out of very 1000 employees took time off for psychological reasons.

This had risen to 65 out of every 1000 employees between March 2006 and March 2007.

Psychological illness includes depression and absenteeism due to stress.

The average number of days per year an employee was ill for psychological reasons was 4.6 days, double the time the average employee takes off for other illnesses, said Johnson.

"Companies should be asking themselves what they can do to make their staff happy and developing wellness management programmes around these statistics. If they don't, they can expect more of their staff to fall prone to psychological illness," Johnson said.

sapa

Absenteeism costs SA R12bn

Absenteeism in the workplace could be costing the South African economy as much as R12-billion a year, according to the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob).

"While it is difficult to obtain satisfactory statistics on this phenomenon, there appears to be evidence pointing towards an increase in the incidence of sick leave so far this year," the chamber said on Monday.

"It is possible that the recent industrial action that has been associated with violence may have contributed to some measure of absenteeism."  [Source: business.iafrica.com Mon 19th June 2006]

Our Comment: Absenteeism can be related to anger or stress. It can be a passive aggressive behaviour against the Company in which the individual feels anger towards and cannot do anything about it directly. Our programmes help the individual to better manage their anger or stress as well as resolve conflict where it is present. Absenteeism is a form of sabotage as it impacts on the bottom line over time.

“Disgruntled IT Workers pose major risk to business  (iWeek 30.6.05)

Corporate insiders who sabotage computers and networks are motivated mainly by anger against their bosses and not by financial gain.

Most were from IT companies’ IT departments and had specific beefs, according to a study that examined computer sabotage cases, focusing mainly on employees who felt the need to attack networks, steal data and wreak technological havoc within their companies. Attacks included deleting mission-critical software and data, posting pornography on the company’s web site and taking down an entire network. Almost all employees took numerous steps to conceal their identities, with some even posing as co-workers. Many employers do not report such attacks, even if there is financial damage to the company.”

Passive-aggressive sabotage can be so subtle, you may not even be aware that it is happening, but it is very destructive. Let us work with your disgruntled staff whether they are directors, line managers or general staff. The Anger Management Centre of SA has helped many company’s and government departments. Delaying can be costly!

SA owners more stressed

By: David Mwanambuyu        Posted : Wednesday, 05 April 2006| © BusinessOwner 1997-2005

A STAGGERING 65% of all South African business owners are reportedly more stressed out today than they were one year ago. This, according to Grant Thornton's 2006 International Business Owner's survey which polled 7 000 enterprise owners running medium-sized firms in 30 countries.

South Africa is rated joint seventh out of the 30 countries polled. Last year it was rated third. This while globally, the report indicates that business owners are now 50% more stressed than last year.

In South Africa, the poll was conducted on 300 medium-sized businesses, each employing between 50 to 250 staff members. Cape Town has the least stressed business owners at 60%.

The survey paints a bleak picture for the Eastern Cape, where both Port Elizabeth and East London registered a 76% increase in work-related stress. Durban and Gauteng scored 67% and 65% respectively.

Lee-Anne Bac, director of strategic solutions at Grant Thornton, could not put a finger on why Cape Town business owners were less stressed.

However, she cites poor infrastructure and shoddy delivery from the public sector as factors behind higher stress levels among Eastern Cape business owners.

An interesting fact, is the link between stress levels and the number of holidays taken. In effect, the report states that the fewer number of holidays taken by business owners, the more stressed they were.

European business owners were the least stressed, taking 22 holidays on average. South Africa with 16 leave days taken, fared slightly above the global average of 15 days. Bac says business owners need to take more holidays.

This view is backed by findings that Taiwan, which has the least number of holidays taken by business owners, recorded the survey's highest stress levels, at 89%.

'Stress leads to physical and emotional problems'

Industrial Psychologist Norma Colley, a specialist in vocational guidance, says stress can lead to both physical and emotional problems.

She says physical symptoms include short-term headaches, sore stomach, painful neck and back, tiredness, long-term general illness, on-going absenteeism and in extreme cases, ulcers or heart attacks.

Emotional symptoms of stress are irritability, mood swings, poor self-esteem, long-term depression and burnout.

Coupled with that, there are lifestyle factors such as neglect of family and other important relationships, reliance on substances such as alcohol or drugs, poor sleeping patterns and long-term factors such as divorce. Colley says working hard is not necessarily a stress factor.

The problem, she says, lies in a failure to devise smarter work schedules. This is done by planning your life properly and leaving enough time for relaxation.

It is very important too, that you spend time with family. She recommends a healthy lifestyle, one of refraining from excessive alcohol use, not getting enough sleep and not eating junk food.

A balanced lifestyle ensures personal problems stay out of your business. She recommends attending to personal problems timeously, thus ensuring that work does not take over your life.

Colley says striking a balance is very important. Though, with more people working longer hours, this is not easy. She believes that traditional South African society shows little tolerance towards working women.

There are tell-tale signs when your should seek professional help - a slump in your work performance, strained relationships both at home and at work, plus recurring sickness are indicators that you need to seek professional help, observes Colley.
 

Exerpt from Business Report 25 May 2006

“Wellness Programmes ‘can save money’” by Neesa Moodley

Companies should be implementing wellness programmes to promote employees’ health, thereby increasing productivity, decreasing absenteeism and saving money. On average, one days sick leave costs R360 vs. consulting a doctor for R170. The cost to business amounts to R526.5 million. Said Beira of Lekana, “Early check-ups and treatment can work wonders and there is significant potential for savings”. Sasol runs such a wellness programme, offering counselling, for a nominal amount per head, which “assures the staff is healthy and happy, which makes for a better company all round”.

The move towards a PREVENTATIVE attitude rather than a curative one was kicked off by schemes such as Discovery Healthcare’s Vitality programme in 1998. The Health Alliance said that unless mind-sets, policies and behaviours were changed at every level of society, the burden of chronic disease was likely to overwhelm even wealthy societies and undermine “hard-won gains”.

Our Anger Management and Stress Management programmes are PREVENTATIVE programmes. Act now and prevent costly problems later, such as staff turnover, low productivity, ill health, loss of revenue and loss of reputation.