MUSCAT: Well-being at Work summit hosted at Oman Tel headquarters on Tuesday looked at various aspects of work — financial, professional, physical, mental, social and nutritional health.
Currently, five generations can be found at workplace — traditionalists, baby boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z. Saif al Abri is the General Manager, People Experience at Oman Tel, and according to him, it is important to have open communication between the generations.
“I think one of the challenges that we can see today is the chemistry between generations because if we speak about Gen Z, for example, they have high expectations. They cannot wait, and it is different than the other generations. So establishing a culture that has full chemistry between the generations has become one of the challenges.
But of course, we are working towards overcoming that. In fact, we had introduced some programmes last year towards the engagement between generationst. So I think with these programmes we will be able to overcome these types of challenges, and this is one of the focuses that we plan to have in 2026,” said Al Abri.
“We focus on employee well-being and mental health. Engagement from the workforce is very important because there is a high level of disengagement in places like the Middle East, Europe and the Far East. Well-being at the workplace today is a critical investment and decision for organisations and companies that want to attract and retain talent,” explained Mark Rix, CEO, Sonas Events, Well-being at Work.
Dr Hamed al Sinawi, Head of Behavioural Medicine, University Medical City, said that more than one billion people worldwide suffer from mental health conditions. There are rising rates of anxiety and depression globally across all age groups and there is an increased healthcare burden as depression is linked to heart health.
And most importantly stigma remains a major reason people do not seek help. “Common mental health stressors are excessive workload and unrealistic deadlines, lack of job control and job insecurity, poor leadership and poor communication, workplace harassment and bullying, improper shift work and fatigue, and lack of proper recognition and purpose.”
Dr Reem al Hashar, Member of the Health Committee at OCCI, said, “In Oman, we always think of people first and businesses are full of people. So when we talk about well-being at work, we are talking about the health of our Manpower. So we are looking at their physical, psychological, financial and social health. So we have to tackle all the risks of your employees.
You are at a place where you are sustaining your productivity and performance of your Manpower.” Replacing an employee typically costs 33 per cent of the base salary, where as a 5 per cent increase in employee engagement can translate to 3-4 per cent boost in productivity, pointed out Mohammed Husary, Founder and CEO, Viewell.
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