Men’s health and its role in business productivity was the focus of a seminar in Perth this week.
WHAT do Oakajee Port and Rail chief executive John Langoulant, Under Treasurer Tim Marney, Reserve Bank board member John Akehurst, state chief medical officer Simon Towler, and Western Power head Doug Aberle have in common?
That question’s not the beginning of a bad joke, but if it were, the punch line would probably be the ‘paunch line’, as the aforementioned leaders were speaking this week at a health forum in Perth on the link between healthy men and healthy profits.
The Men’s Advisory Network (MAN) hosted the Healthy Men Healthy Profits seminar and explored the implications men’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health can have for employers, businesses and the national economy.
The seminar was exploring the theme that productivity naturally relies on healthy workers, as they are said to be three times more productive than unhealthy workers.
The seminar and its speakers pointed to looming skills shortages, an ageing workforce and increasing government healthcare costs, saying the combination of events will inevitably lead to an impact on business’ productivity and the bottom line.
Add to that the increasing prevalence of mental health issues, with 3 million Australians and one in eight men suffering from anxiety and depression.
The World Health Organisation suggests by introducing health programs, workplaces could increase productivity by 52 per cent and reduce sick leave by up to 30 per cent, which currently costs Australian business $7 billion each year.
Dr Towler said 683 out of every 1,000 employees in Australia were in the ‘danger zone’ for nutritional health risk while 220 were in the danger zone for physical fitness.
However, he said health risks were changing for men, with the greatest risks now lying in neurological, chronic respiratory and mental health.
“Changing healthcare issues should mean changing healthcare models. We must change with the pressures upon us,” he said.
Dr Towler said health risk and productivity formed an established relationship and an integrated, multidisciplinary and innovative approach was required if businesses and healthcare providers were going to tackle the issues ahead with the impending retirement of the baby boomer generation.
While Mr Langoulant joked that health seminars often end with a beer and a sausage, he highlighted the significance of the ageing workforce and the importance of introducing innovative workplace health programs in keeping younger generations healthy, thereby supporting the workforce.
“An ageing community means the median age of workers now is 37 but it will be 46 in 30 years’ time. Dealing with that prospect now is important. Placing the health of the person and their family as number one greatest importance ... it’s about walking the talk with genuine engagement with the workforce as a manager,” Mr Langoulant said.
Mr Marney stressed the relationship between a workplace and the individual flowed both ways, and listed the cultural and legislative influence of individuals as having the greatest impact on an organisation and its workforce.
He said depression was one of the major issues affecting the bottom line of businesses across Australia.
“The cost of untreated depression in lost productivity alone is $4.3 billion, excluding WorkCover claims, part-time or casual employees, anxiety disorders, the time of managers and HR,” Mr Marney told the seminar.
“Employees with untreated depression take three to four days off a month.”
For a nation where 50 per cent of those suffering depression or anxiety are undiagnosed, this is a significant issue.
Mr Marney, who sits on the board of national depression initiative beyondblue, said organisations must recognise the important role they played in the recovery of those suffering from anxiety and depression.
“Workplaces and organisations that play a part in the recovery, that incorporate the workplace and the organisation into mental health recovery, have a greater outcome for the recovery of the individual,” he said.
By capitalising on the captive audience and communication channels available to them, Mr Marney said organisations could build a culture of positive mental health.
beyondblue is currently running a national workplace program aimed at equipping organisations with the awareness and skills to manage common mental health problems at work effectively.
Mr Marney’s discussion of the workplace culture surrounding mental health was complemented by that of Mr Akehurst, who spoke of his efforts in changing the culture and limiting the bad behaviour of the workforce at Woodside when he was chief executive of the resource giant.
“We discovered these dysfunctional behaviours in the workforce and I discovered that as chief executive my dysfunctional behaviour was responsible,” Mr Akehurst said.
“There are two sides of it (culture), the hard wiring of the organisation, the business processes and management systems ... and the soft stuff. In my experience that is the wrong way around, the hard stuff is actually the easy stuff and the soft stuff is actually the hard stuff.”
Mr Akehurst suggested those at the seminar begin to change their reactionary behaviour by becoming more cognisant of the choices inherent in their behaviour, urging them to choose to change they way they act or react to certain situations at work – a modification he suggested would be the beginning of cultural change at an organisation.
Mr Aberle, who is also a qualified psychotherapist, echoed Mr Akehurst’s beliefs in holistic healthcare and focused on the impact it can have to organisations, saying “physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health are inextricably linked.”
“It is a conscious choice, if we choose to work from vision, we expand; if we work from fear we contract. Many workplaces’ driver is to work from fear, the truth is we have a choice,” he said.
