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<h1>Occupational Health and Safety - Stress and Workaholism at Work</h1>

There has been a lot of hullabaloo recently about the problems
facing Australia in retaining talented workers and the subsequent
pressure placed on those remaining behind in the workplace.
The incidence in stress claims is rising and is having an impact
on the economy and enterprises in general.
The incidences of people who work &#8216;day in day out&#8217;
who in many ways are closet workaholics is increasing.We are told
that 1 in 5 Australians are suffering from some sort of mental
illness and that 1 in 7 teenager&#8217;s at high-school suffer from
depression. This comes from proven research but my guess is that it
is probably higher, after all these subjects are still quite taboo
in our society.
Why be the richest and unhappiest person in the cemetery? Take a
walk around the local cemetery sometimes and read the inscriptions
&#8211; it&#8217;s actually quite interesting what you read.
People are becoming crankier, less tolerant, and the workplace
is rapidly becoming a battleground where much emotion is wasted in
argy bargy, meetings and petty grievances.
It could be argued that &#8216;workaholism&#8217; could be in
part contributed by the ageing population, different generational
expectations, talented workers moving offshore and the move from
permanent employment to contract working. This is simply
untrue.
The lesson seems to be that some have work and others
don&#8217;t, slaving away 12 hours plus per day in order to keep
the wolf from the door, the mortgage paid, the annual holiday and
whatever else pushes their buttons and sacrifice quality of life
&#8211; for what?.
Australia has one of the most highly qualified unemployed
&#8216;work-force&#8217; in the world.
I am a firm believer in education and as one wise person said
&#8216;if you think that education is expensive try
ignorance&#8217;. I am committed to life long learning so long as
it benefits my clients and me.
But what about the commonsense approach of sharing the load and
looking after our back yard.
Why aren&#8217;t company&#8217;s learning from their mistakes,
taking responsibility (a dirty word today) and ensuring that they
are adequately resourced and taking the time to know their people.
Or could it be that the relentless drive for shareholder value has
blinded the eyes of these executives who sit in their ivory towers
issuing edicts mindless to the fact that below them often sits a
smoking powder keg. If you were privy to the previous company
secrets that I was when I was CEO and the mindless way my superiors
though of and treated their employees you would be shocked. Or when
I was in Banking and the way the Bank paid out $500,000 in
unbudgeted redundancies in 1994 besides other amounts that were
cleverly disguised in various ways simply to get rid of people.
In my daily work as a strategic human resource management
advisor I am privy to the heartaches of people as they tell me
their difficulties. Most of these difficulties focus around other
work colleagues or overwork. Chronic overwork has a tremendous
impact of personal health, family life and company
productivity.
I have to confess that I was once a workaholic for many years
before a heart scare woke me up in time and thankfully without
doing any major damage to my health. This is not just my story but
one of many that is illustrated by the following true story that I
was involved with (names and identities have been changed).
The following is a true story with details changed to protect
privacy.
Liam was the General Manager of an organisation that operated in
New South Wales and Queensland. He was very experienced in his
field and had been a secret workaholic for 15 years.
He had been employed to help get the company back on track after
the overseas parent company had put the cleaners through management
and left the company drift for 3 months without leadership
Soon after starting he began to experience increased pressure
and the mantra seemed to be &#8216;I&#8217;ve been working on the
railroad all the dead day long&#8217;
Yes it was sales, sales, sales, profit, profit, and profit come
hell or &#8216;high-water&#8217; with no regard to workers who were
viewed as lazy.
For the first 6 months Liam worked hard at raising the company
standard. This often required Liam travelling away from home.
Liam started to achieve some credible results and after 6 months
had NSW and QLD co-operating as a team for the first time in 12
years and sales and profits started to increase. This came to the
notice of the overseas parent but the pressure was not lessoned.
This was despite him working 14 &#8211;16 hour days.
Liam wasn't happy and looked at his options. He took the option
to resign although he could have taken leave under workplace health
and safety guidelines. In his resignation letter he tabled his
concerns about the company&#8217;s breach of their duty of care,
and other known incidences that he had brought to management and
that he had not been given the reasonable relief he had
requested.
I became involved with this process and represented Liam in
discussions with the Chairman of the Board.
What does the law say?
Under the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 employers have an
obligation to ensure the health and safety of all workers by
managing risks at the workplace. This includes physical, mental and
emotional. In addition, employers are under a common law duty of
care and will be found liable if they break the law and a breach of
their statutory and common law obligations are proven. There are
heavy penalties for individuals and organisations that disregard
the law.
All employers have an obligation to be totally upfront and
realistic about the job on offer. For more information you will
find articles at(www.biz-momentum.com) Biz Momentum which are
available for you free of charge.
What should the company have done?
&#8226; The company should have had in place a workplace stress
policy.
&#8226; Management should have taken their duty of care under
workplace health &amp; safety seriously. In this instance employee
moral began to suffer because of mismanagement.
&#8226; The company should have had a policy on working hours
and what constituted reasonable expectations for after hours, work
including management.
&#8226; The company should have taken Liam&#8217;s reports and
discussions seriously and investigated his concerns.
&#8226; The company had a general duty of care to ensure that
there was adequate employees&#8217; to cover the work.
&#8226; The company should have consulted their industrial or
legal professionals
&#8226; The company should have given Liam adequate time to
recover and re-size his position. He had more than proved he could
operate successfully through the financial and leadership
results.
What should Liam have done?
&#8226; Liam followed the right processes documenting his
difficulties and speaking with management
&#8226; Liam kept file notes of these discussions.
&#8226; He requested leave that was reluctantly given but only
for 1 week, insufficient to recover.
&#8226; He should have gone to his Doctor and taken advice and
in my view taken long term leave through WH&amp;S.
&#8226; Liam took industrial advice.
&#8226; Taken counselling &#8211; we all have issues that
sometimes speaking with someone else can help resolve.
The Wash-up
I meet with the Chairman of the Board and stressed the
seriousness of Liam&#8217;s situation. Yes the Chairman understood
this and acknowledged there had been some wrong doing by the
company.
As Liam had voluntary resigned the Chairman proposed that a
payment of $60,000 be offered as a without prejudice payment on
signing a deed of release.
It was ultimately Liam&#8217;s choice and he accepted.

<div>Author Info 
Philip Lye is Director of Biz-momentum (
<a target="_new" href="http://www.biz-momentum.com">http://www.biz-momentum.com</a>)providing
services in startegic human resource management, review and
preparation of HR policies, procedures and workplace health and
safety compliance strategies.
Philip speaks a conferences and forums on strategic business
issues. He is also a qualified Accountant
</div>

Article Source: <a href="http://www.innoarticles.com" title="Your #1 Source For Quality Articles">InnoArticles.com</a>
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