Despite being ranked as one of the countries with the most public holidays, Malaysians surprisingly work the most hours, according to a recent survey. Exceeding fast-paced countries like Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia, Malaysians are said to work an average of 15 hours or more than their contracted hours weekly.
Regardless of all the over-working hours, Malaysians tend to be least productive as they mope in high percentage of absenteeism and presentism. With an estimated annual loss of RM2.7 million, Malaysia came in second after Hong Kong with 67 days of productivity loss yearly.
While absenteeism generally signifies the percentage of absentees in an organization, presentism occurs when employees are sick at work or low in productivity despite being present at workplace. Involving 214 organisations and 10,001 employees around Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, the survey was conducted in search of the ‘Healthiest Workplace’.
It turns out that the major reason of productivity loss in Malaysia is due to work-related stress and poor health routines amongst employees. Malaysians generally live an unhealthy lifestyle, with 90% having poor eating habits and being the highest physically inactive nation with an average of 64% Malaysians doing less than 150 minutes of physical activity weekly.
Our working habits are literally killing us slowly. Long hours of inactivity in the office left 84% of the nation’s employees with at least one type of musculoskeletal condition like back, shoulder and neck aches. Not only that, the sedentary lifestyle is also mentally torturing Malaysians as 53% of us are at risk of mental health issues.
Welp, what do we do now?
