New ways sought to ensure workplace wellness: Bahrain

Nargis Al Banna

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Speakers and subject experts at the ‘Mental Health in the Work Environment’ Conference have sought new ways to ensure workplace wellness across organisations and companies.

Speaking at the conference yesterday, Dr Ramin Mohajer, Managing Partner at Aspire Muscat Institute, said material-based approaches wouldn’t offer solutions to fix issues that are detrimental to wellness at the workplace.

“When we talk of mental health in the work environment, we must focus on reducing stress, anxiety, phobias and disorders.

We all have issues with our wellbeing, and we need to address them one by one,” Dr Mohajer said.

He said open-minded leadership remains the main solution to ensure wellness at workplaces.

“The leadership should be willing to accept differences of opinions.

It should end overworking, promote work from remote apart from creating platforms for the systematic documentation of shared resources,” he said.

Dr Akbar Jaffari, Chief Executive and Owner at JAFCON Consultants for Productivity, said the belief that technology is bringing wellness to the workplace is wrong.

“We are strangers working in strange environments and multi-dimensional approaches are vital in ensuring wellness at the workplace,” Dr Jaffari said.

He attributed the difficulty in finding the solutions to a lack of accumulated human experience in the field of organisational management.

“Human history is more than five million years old, but the history of companies or organizations is just 550 years old.

The first company, Dutch East Asia Company, was formed 550 years ago, to manage the commercial side of the Dutch Government, so the kind of accumulated experience humans have in the field of history, agriculture or medicine is lacking in organizational management,” Dr Jaffari said.

World Health Organization representative Dr Tasnim Atatrah said health is a complete status encompassing physical, emotional and intellectual welfare “There is no physical health without mental health and no mental health without physical health,” Dr Atatrah said.

She said the COVID-19 situation has further deteriorated the wellness at the workplace for millions of workers, owing to the insecurity and financial instability.

Dr Atatrah urged all departments concerned to work along with the International Labour Union to devise codes and procedures that would ensure wellness at the workplace.

Earlier, the conference was inaugurated by Labour and Social Development Minister Jameel Humaidan.