As the Republic races towards full employment, some enlightened companies are realising that a big pay-packet is no longer sufficient to keep stressed employees in their jobs. "If you're gonna work them hard, you've gotta treat them well" is the new maxim for an increasing number of businesses, including callcentres, information technology companies, advertising agencies and management institutes. Otherwise, they'll simply find another job.
Often it is an individual employee who has discovered the stress-relieving benefits of massage, reflexology or yoga who approaches someone in management, personnel or human resources with the idea of having on-site treatments or classes. Sometimes, a complementary health practitioner is invited to speak to staff to gauge the level of interest. And it develops from there.
Margaret Connolly is one such complementary health practitioner who has given talks and treatments to staff at Johnson & Johnson, Eircom, Robert Roberts and Dublin Bus. She is currently developing a positive living course for staff at Eircom's repair service centre.
Margaret Duggan is the Eircom manager who brought Connolly into the workplace. "I believe that wellbeing at work is so important," she says. "We got great kudos for introducing the neck and shoulder massage to our staff. I also feel it is very important for people on shift work to eat well, to learn simple breathing techniques for relaxation at their desks and to learn stress-management techniques for handling difficult calls.
"I see a lot of people under pressure with work who simply don't have the time to go for a massage, so they develop migraine or digestive problems due to stress. Offering employees something they can do in the workplace during worktime is a great way of improving their working conditions."
An increase in staff motivation and a corresponding decrease in absenteeism are the obvious benefits which encourage managers to try such initiatives. Connolly quotes a Danish study which found that the number of sick days per employee per year in a post office went down from 11.4 to 8.5 days after a course of reflexology treatments.
"On-site head and shoulder massage for 20 minutes or so will cost approximately £15 per person, which can be a lot less than taking everyone out for a race night - and many of them will appreciate it a lot more," says Connolly.
Connolly also believes that wellbeing programmes (with relaxation training as well as massage/reflexology sessions) need to be tailor-made for individual companies, with employee input. Workers in callcentres suffer different stresses from those affecting managers who travel abroad frequently or software developers working to a deadline. The employees attending the yoga class at Lucent Technologies have no doubts about the benefits of their weekly session, which takes place in the canteen at the company's swish offices in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin.
"Often you just want to flop down when you get home from work. By having a yoga class as part of the working day, it helps me keep it as a routine," says Lucent employee Tony Roy. Rosemary Buttimer, who works in the finance department, is even more convinced about the benefit of her yoga class. "It helps me to take control of my life. There isn't much time for myself," she says. Yvonne McGrory, who works in customer documentation, adds: "It reminds you that there is a life outside of work. Yoga is a good way of stepping back from it all and relaxing. If it was held somewhere else, there would be the stress of getting there and coming home afterwards."
Patricia Doran says that she finds the breathing aspect of yoga beneficial. "I remind myself to breathe, put my shoulders back and relax a bit rather than sitting slouched all the time," she says. Added benefits include missing the rush-hour traffic (the class is held between 5.30 p.m. and 7 p.m.) and arriving home clear-headed from work. Maureen Nightingale, the teacher from Yoga Therapy Ireland, confirms the positive findings of the employees.
"Following the introductory eight-week course at Lucent, the participants said they slept better, had more energy, less pains and aches, more awareness of their bodies and breathing. They all believed it was a great way to leave their problems behind, instead of taking them home to their families," she says. Frank Kennedy, a teacher of the Alexander Technique, has run courses for newly appointed managers at the Irish Management Institute. To begin with, he asks them questions about how they feel in the last hour of a tough day at work. Then, depending on what they say, he teaches them appropriate stress-relieving techniques.
"I give them some insight into the fact that they can choose how they react to pressure," he says. "The vast majority of people react by tensing up their body. I encourage them to be more mindful of keeping their necks free and not holding their breath."
The Alexander Technique is taught as a series of lessons in which individuals learn to improve their sitting, standing and walking postures to relieve pain or tension in their bodies.
Nessa O'Shaughnessy, who runs Stressless - Massage in the Workplace, has companies such as Logica, QMP D'Arcy and the Four Seasons Hotel on her client list. She says the major problem area for most people is their neck and shoulders after working all day on a computer. She therefore brings her custom-designed massage chair to her clients. Jeremy Crisp, deputy managing director of QMP D'Arcy, explains why Nessa was brought into his advertising agency. "Our staff are under a lot of creative pressures to come up with new ideas, as well as time pressures which won't go away. So we decided to offer them 15 minutes of hardcore stress relief to help them deal with the pressure," he says.
Crisp adds that he himself finds the Shiatsu-based acupressure massage given by Nessa to be invigorating rather than relaxing.
For those who feel that massage, reflexology, the Alexander Technique or yoga just aren't enough to reduce their stress levels sufficiently, the latest calming technique on offer to workers is meditation.
Taking her inspiration from a group of Benedictine monks in North America, Susan O'Brien hopes to teach meditation to groups of workers for half an hour before they begin work.
"Many people are already in a state of hyper-arousal before they begin work, having got kids out to school, battled with the traffic and maybe even dealing with unresolved stresses from the previous day," she says. "Meditation has been found to be much more successful and more powerful in a group setting, so what I am suggesting is that companies take up this opportunity for their employees to get the cumulative benefits of meditation before they begin their working day."
