8/7/2019 Occupational Hazards - Business Wellness for Asia Spa Magazine

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wellbeing

AsiaSpa 2009 2009 AsiaSpaAsiaSpa 2009

wellbeing

writer MichaelStevens

unicyclebusinessmanoutdoorbalanceistockphot

o.com/Zonecreative

The Coming

RevoluTion

in CoRpoRaTe

Wellness

Ablack president in the White House, a global depressionnot known or the best part o a century and the Japaneseare going to the moon the times they are changin andbusiness had better catch up. Theres a revolution in wellnesscoming and those companies built on ear, threat andcontrol may soon be too sick to survive it. Revolution, yousay? Doesnt that mean anarchy? Dictatorship? Bad beards?Beore you grab your Che Guavara T-Shirt and copy o DasRepublic, let me explain...Occupa

tiOnal

Hazards

For more than 200 years, companies have

been built like prot machines. Their top-

down management systems were designed

to standardise and control, encouraging the

retention o rigid organisational structures

and archaic management practices that sawrevenue come rst and peoples needs come

second. Thankully, the growing public trend

towards wellness, health and spirituality has

expanded beyond the sphere o hippies,

gurus and spiritual quacks and exploded

into the global consciousness. The result?

More and more employees are realising that

a business with healthy prots can still be a

very sick place to work.

lookinG back

During the industrial revolution the average

workday was between 13 and 15 hours, the

work week oten seven days and children

as young as seven commonly cleaned

machinery because they could crawl into

smaller spaces than adults. What seemed

normal at other historical epochs today

seems cruel, exploitative and even criminal.

In 50 years time, when we look back at the

businesses o today, perhaps we will eel

similar bewilderment at companies that

built their ortunes on stress, anger and little

appreciation o the connection between

emotional and physical wellness.

the role of peptides

Peptides are short chains o amino acids

that communicate emotions in the physical

orm. They are secreted by glands and are

distributed throughout the body, attaching

to receptors in all the major organs. I a

person is habitually angry or stressed, or

example, the anger or stress peptide will be

repeatedly released into the body and stored

by the receptor. In short: negative emotions

transorm into a physical reaction. This

ultimately means that long-term exposure

to negative occupational environments can

result in extreme physical dysunction.

I you want proo, here it is. In 1973, Dr.

Grossarth-Maticek conducted a sel-regulation

test with almost six thousand 40-66 year-oldGerman participants. The test measured

whether people were able to create a positive

sense o wellbeing in their lie by adapting

negative habits, behaviors and infuences.

15 years later, quite incredibly, 86 percent

o those people who ranked themselves as

highly adaptable were still alive compared

to only 1.6 percent who ranked themselves

as unadaptable. Indeed, higher death

rates rom cancer, coronary heart disease

and virtually all other causes correlated

directly with lower sel-regulation scores.

Dr. Grossarth-Maticek showed that people

who cannot adapt to negative infuences live

approximately eight years less than those who

can. It proves what many o have suspected

or a long time. Companies that are stressul,

ear generating, shaming environments are

poisoning their employees. Fact.

the Wellness revolution

The modern business leader is as responsible or

creating a healthy occupational environment

as providing the right saety gear. In uture,

people are increasingly going to naturally select

companies that nurture them emotionally andspiritually, not stress them out. Sounds simple

enough but or environments to change,

business leaders rst need to realise that the

occupational environments they have created

arent up to scratch and that wellness policies

arent just a passing ad.

neW business models

In the not-too-distant-uture, businesses

are going to nd it increasingly dicult to

hire the best people because employees

will be demanding healthy spirit-based

environments that are people-driven,

not ego-based companies that are prot-

driven. Consequently companies seriously

pursuing a long-term uture will need to seek

proessional guidance to cure their spiritualills in the same way that they once hired

TQM and ISO experts to x their systems.

no quick fix

Wellness programmes are a great start

but there is a key dierence between well

companies and companies that are merely

investing in wellness programs. So many

companies are jumping on the wave o

wellness but ew o them are learning

to sur, agrees world renowned healer

and holistic consultant Roger Moore. In

many companies wellness is skin deep but

wellness, by denition, is concerned with

everything that makes a person whole.

Moore (whose client list includes Ma-

donna, U2 and Sting) describes a shit rom a

Whats in-it-or-me? culture to What can I do

or you? culture. The prot-ocused business

is a earul business because it is motivated

by survival and destroying opponents, says

Moore. The alternative is a business ocused

on achievement. When people are aligned,

entrained and working or something that is

more emotionally appealing than prot, the

synergy created is simply awe-inspiring. I wecould take our eye o the bottom line or a

moment, we would see the incredible power

to be explored within higher ideals.

This implies that a well business is

one that creates the right environment be-

cause they understand human needs, not

because it will aect their bottom line. This

is illustrated by statistics recorded by the

National Business Group on Health in 2008,

which indicated that while companies with

wellness programs increased productivity

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When asked how this might come about,

Hoare says, There needs to be a paradigm

shit in the way employers take care o their

workers, not a top down approach but an

all encompassing approach where care reallymeans having empathy, creating actionable

programs, leading wellness rom the top,

ensuring that people get the right levels o

physical activity, stress management support,

healthy eating options and guidance,

education in a variety o wellness related

arenas, developing communication skills,

promoting their emotional intelligence

and inspiring care or each other and the

development o a business culture where

wellness is absolutely essential or the

business to operate.

Wellness Within Wellness

No other business sector has greater potential

to be wellness revolution leaders than the spa

and wellness industry particularly in Asia. It

is absurd that Asia should all behind the North

American and European wellness trend when

we consider that its spiritual traditions have or

millennia been steeped in generating personal

peace and contentment. Asia needs only apply

the power innate within its own heritage

to realise that its companies are sitting on a

by eight percent, the resulting increase in

morale was 56 percent.

chanGinG values

A recent report conducted by the society orHuman Resources Management in the US

declared that 62 percent o companies are

now oering wellness programs. This trend

is supported by employees across the globe

and in 2003 the Association o Occupational

Health Nurses Inc. reported that more than 50

percent o those surveyed stated they would

remain at their current job i their employer

oered a health and wellness programme.

Wellness should become an essential part o

new business models. Successul businesses

will one day rank sta wellbeing alongside

the other drivers o a successul business including nancial prot and customer

satisaction, testies Bryan Hoare, Director o

Wellness at Six Senses Destination Spa.

a spiritual connection

Renowned author Dr. Steven Covey

once said, We are not human beings

on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual

beings on a human journey. One o the

greatest challenges o business is to make

occupational environments more human.

competitive gold mine that is the next quantum

leap in the way all businesses will run.

GettinG philosophical

Buddha said I you knew what I knowabout the power o giving, you would not

let a single meal pass without sharing it

in some way. What a powerul concept

to extend to business. By engaging and

including people, motivating and inspiring,

developing and spiritually exploring,

the potential o a workorce expands

exponentially compared with the dated one-

dimensional environments o the past. There

is a undamental dierence in philosophy

between a business organised around a

return on salaries and a business investing

in people. One gives because it wants itsmoney back. The other gives because it

knows the power o giving.

Everything a business does expands

out rom this philosophical choice. It is not

an easy choice or minds that have until

now, been locked into management, not

wellbeing. While some leaders may not

see the other side o the chasm, those who

have their eyes xed rmly on the horizon,

can see a horizon o human potential that

stretches on orever. And it eels good.

wellbeing

There needs to be a paradigm shitin the way employers take care

o their workers