A recent survey found Malaysian employees are overworked, stressed, lead unhealthy lifestyles, and face high risk of health problems and productivity loss.

According to Malaysia’s leading English daily ‘The Star’, Malaysians work an average of 15 hours more than their contracted hours each week, surpassing workers in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.  However, Malaysians suffer from a high percentage of productivity loss, i.e. local workers are far less productive than their regional counterparts.

A newly-released workplace survey conducted by AIA Vitality found that Malaysian employees are overworked, stressed, lead unhealthy lifestyles, and as a result, are at high risk of health problems and productivity loss.  The survey also found that Malaysia has the highest percentage of employees who slept less than seven hours a night at 56%.

Malaysian employees also reported the highest percentage of physical inactivity with 64% doing less than 150 minutes of physical activity a week.  Due to the high stress and sedentary lifestyle, the survey found that 84% of employees reported at least one type of musculoskeletal condition while 53% are at risk of mental health issues.  The survey linked poor employee health and well-being to a major loss in organisation productivity.

Among the four countries surveyed, Malaysian employees recorded the second highest number (after Hong Kong) of absenteeism and ‘presenteeism’, at 67 days a year.  ‘Presenteeism’ is when an employee is physically present for work despite being sick or not being productive.

The Malaysia’s Healthiest Workplace by AIA Vitality Survey 2017 involved a total of 5,369 employees from 47 organisations.  The wider Healthiest Workplace survey, encompassing Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, surveyed 214 organisations and 10,001 employees in total.

Read the original article at : “Long hours but not too productive?”