Partners in Business workshops

Dolores Gauci, chief executive officer of the Richmond Foundation, will be facilitating three HR Partners in Business workshops in partnership with Maria Pia Chircop, HR consultant and training practitioner. The workshops deal with 'Employee assistance programmes', 'Roles, relationships and partnerships' and 'Managing challenging employees'. They will take place on November 18 and 25 and December 2, at the Westin Dragonara Resort, St Julian's.

Work-related stress is becoming rapidly recognised causing considerable concern to the global business community.

Changing jobs, skills and locations or having to face loss of income due to reduced hours of work or redundancy causes havoc in a person's life.

A recent report in the media has mentioned that employees of France Telecom were feeling a lot of pressure due to the company's privatisation, but this was compounded by new technologies that cause work to encroach increasingly on personal lives. The report revealed that 22 workers in the same company committed suicide and another 13 attempted to kill themselves since the beginning of 2008.

A top executive warned that a barrage of e-mails from smart phones and personal computers was stressing employees. Fifteen years ago people did not have a mobile phone or a PC at home.

Signs of stress can manifest themselves in other symptoms, such as low motivation, decreased performance, absenteeism, abnormal sick leave and depression, which would eventually contribute to low productivity, efficiency and loss of valuable production hours.

Top management seek every conceivable tool or method to address good corporate governance, financial controls, asset management, marketing strategies, and health and safety procedures, but sometimes fail to appreciate that early detection and prevention of employees' mental health problems is important.

Responsible management is realising that an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is an additional cost to the company but pays in the long run.

Feedback from companies and local business institutions that have adopted EAPs indicates that investment in such programmes goes a long way towards safeguarding the optimisation of their most valuable contributor to their business.

For more information e-mail or call 2141 2652 or 9940 3102.