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SINGAPORE: Companies are not scaling back on workplace health promotion programmes despite the economic downturn. More organisations are beginning to realise that healthy employees mean better business.
Over 350 companies received the Singapore Health Award on Thursday for going the extra mile to take care of their employees' health.
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said: "No employee wants to be sick, no employer wants his employee to be sick. No colleague likes to be burdened whenever his other colleagues report sick."
The economy may be in the doldrums, but companies like IBM said they will continue to implement health programmes like fruit-a-week schemes, mass aerobics or health talks which have reaped benefits in the long run.
IBM said its medical cost per employee has dropped by 14 per cent in the last three years, between 2004 and 2007, after implementing workplace health programmes.
With an ageing workforce, companies have been urged to step up health screenings and provide follow-up care for those with chronic ailments.
Jurong Shipyard is one such forward-thinking company. Wong Peng Kin, senior general manager, Jurong Shipyard, Platinum Health Award winner, said: "Our workforce has been with us for a long time.
"In the year 2000, we saw that the trend for such maturing workers was hypertension. We looked at the situation and decided that we would rather take a preventive approach than a remedial approach later on."
The company's older workers benefited from health programmes such as diabetes care, weight management and smoking control. - CNA/vm
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