Gone were the days where employees stayed loyal only to one employer till retirement. Following the growth in living standards and education in Malaysia, employees tend to seek for better career opportunities and progression. Leaving a job to pursue a better opportunity and career progression are becoming social norms. The raging COVID-19 pandemic situation has also magnified the rate of workforce turnover in the market. Employers spend considerable time, money and effort in developing strong relationships with suppliers, customers and employees. These strong relationships contribute greatly to the success of the business.
In such circumstances, employers would require legal protection to protect their business interests to prevent poaching of customers and staff by their former employees. A non-solicitation agreement or clause is an agreement between employer and employee whereby employee agrees not to solicit any of the employer’s business customers or colleagues after the employee left to join a competitor or be a competitor of the employer.
Kuala Lumpur, 8 November 2021 – International SOS, one of the world’s leading health and security companies, has reiterated the importance of mental health and wellbeing in the new business environment, highlighting that COVID-19 has shifted the traditional understanding of the duty of care of employers. Statistics from a recent BCI (Business Continuity Institute) research report – drawn together in collaboration with International SOS – demonstrate how mental health issues are now front of mind for many business leaders, as 87.4% of surveyed relevant experts acknowledged that mental health was now a key consideration within their crisis management plans.
According to recent reports quoting the Deputy Health Minister, Aaron Ago Dagang, there have been four times as many calls on mental health to the Health Ministry so far this year compared to last year.[1] With this significant increase in mental health-related issues, the Government and non-governmental organisations have been working on introducing more programmes and campaigns to raise awareness about mental health. International SOS believes that Malaysian businesses also have an important role to play and it is crucial for employers to recognise the duty of care responsibility they have in caring for the mental health of their employees.
Elaborating on the importance of reinforcing an organisation’s mental health and wellbeing agenda, Jing Tan, Regional General Manager and Director of South East Asia, International SOS, shared “Mental health has rapidly gained attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, largely due to its negative impact on quality of life, productivity and wellbeing. Although COVID-19 is not the only factor affecting mental health, the situation has heightened it. With mental health and emotional struggles being one of the most important stigmas stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is vital that businesses address the issue of mental health head on, developing a holistic mental wellbeing strategy to fulfil duty of care responsibilities and build employees’ overall resilience.”
He continued, “According to data from our Risk Outlook 2021, 1 in 3 risk professionals believe that mental health issues will contribute significantly to declining productivity levels this year and a business that supports employees appropriately will therefore likely be in a better, more productive place than one that does not. As such, organisations need to ensure their people’s emotional needs are addressed by dedicated health experts through medically-informed health and mental wellbeing programmes and initiatives. Employees should be provided with a route to confidentially discuss their emotional health issues away from their direct managers and teams. It is about cultivating a workplace culture which understands how different employees may be experiencing different mental health issues. There is an opportunity for organisations to prioritise mental health and recognise that mental health as an essential part of the framework of organisations, rather than seen as an add-on.”
In line with this, International SOS shared some key strategies Malaysian businesses could implement to promote resilience and help their employees deal with any potential mental health issues:
- Take steps to check in individually with every employee
This may appear an obvious first move to implement regarding maintaining a robust mental wellbeing strategy, but it is nonetheless an essential one. It is important for businesses to treat every employee as an individual; different people respond to stress brought on by the pandemic in different ways, resulting in a range of mental health issues for employees. The first step towards recognising these issues comes from actively checking in with employees in a one-to-one situation. This allows businesses to form a greater understanding of how they are coping through this particularly difficult period. This can also be done by carrying out Mental Health or Resilience Surveys with tools that have scientifically been validated and can uncover individual pain points.
- Ensure people have and are aware of secure and confidential routes for sharing their mental health issues
Strategies which look to engage with employees should be accompanied by more subtle routes for people to gain help. Often people may feel intimidated to discuss their mental health with their colleagues or manager they work with on a day-to-day basis, as they may have anxiety about the way they are perceived. To counter this issue, it is important that employees are able to discuss their mental health issues with people within a business away from their direct teams, preferably a HR manager or someone with mental health first aid training. Removing the stigma to discussing mental health issues is an important part of creating a culture of health within an organisation. Getting leaders to walk the talk is key.
- Allow and encourage employees to take breaks
To be at our most productive, it is important to take regular breaks within the workday. One useful, and easy to implement, technique is the Pomodoro Technique. This involves using a timer (the ‘Pomodoro’ original or other timer), to break down work into intervals, separated by short breaks. The steps of the technique are: Decide on the task to be done and set a timer, usually 25 minutes, and work on the task. When the timer rings, put a checkmark on a piece of paper and take a break. If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break of three to five minutes and then reset the timer. After four checkmarks, take a longer break of 15–30 minutes. Then start the technique again, resetting your checkmark count to zero. This has been proven to help improve concentration and avoid procrastination, as well as providing a sense of achievement as tasks are completed.
- Consider the information employees are receiving
People are bombarded in their daily, technology-filled, lives with more and more information and it is hard to get away from it. Some of the information around the Coronavirus are factually inaccurate – feeding feelings of mass hysteria and paranoia. Both a lack of information and poor-quality information has been shown to increase irrational thinking. Checking in with employees on a personal level to make sure they are receiving information from legitimate sources is an important task for employers. It can help employees form an understanding of the situation in the world which counters many of the negative conspiratorial narratives we’ve seen come about as a result of the pandemic.
- Provide employees with the tools to help themselves, understanding the level of personal responsibility which must be encouraged
Ultimately businesses need to be focused on creating the conditions in which an individual employee is able to take responsibility for their mental wellbeing, finding the particular strategies which work for them. This links fundamentally to the workplace culture businesses cultivate; a culture which promotes self-care and provides the tools for this can be invaluable for employees. If people feel like they have the option of going for a lunchtime walk to a local park, getting some much-needed fresh air and exercise, then they are far more likely to so but the decision to go ahead with this still rests with them. With many employees working from home encouraging personal responsibility regarding mental wellbeing becomes an even more important task, as organisations in the hybrid or fully work from home set up have a lot less direct oversight on employees.
International SOS has been working directly with many organisations during the pandemic helping them deal with the mental health issues brought on by the pandemic, including education and awareness, programme design, remote counselling and Telehealth support. They have also developed a Spot the Risk online questionnaire to help raise awareness of mental health concerns at work, which is available here – https://spottherisk.com/.
For further information on how International SOS supports organisations and their people around the world, go to www.internationalsos.com.
[1] Source – https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2021/09/15/almost-four-fold-increase-in-calls-to-mental-health-hotlines/
Starting today! Beginning November 8, foreign nationals traveling to the United States are required to demonstrate proof of full vaccination against COVID-19, in addition to showing proof of a negative COVID-19 test.
Questions?
🔗 Watch our explainer video! https://youtu.be/i-b08m5VJFY Jom travel ke U.S. 🇺🇸!
For purposes of entry into the United States, the accepted vaccines will include FDA approved or authorized and WHO Emergency Use Listing vaccines.
(🔗 Please see https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/testing-international-air-travelers.html)
🔗 For more details, check out:
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/update-on-us-travel-policy-requiring-covid-19-vaccination.html
ConocoPhillips posted its highest quarterly profit in a decade after the US oil producer benefited from a sustained rally in crude and natural gas. Net income for the third quarter soared to US$2.4 billion, the highest going back to 2011. Capital spending was just 32% of cash from operations in the period, indicating that ConocoPhillips has swathes of cash left over for debt reduction and shareholder returns at these price levels.
During the peak of COVID-19, Malaysia logged more than 20,000 new cases per day on average. With 78.1 percent of the Malaysian population being vaccinated and the continuous rise of vaccination rate, the new cases have subsided to a daily average of 6,000 lately with the lowest record of 4,782 cases on 25 October. Yet the long fight against the pandemic has caused a major strain on the medical field. According to World Health Organisation, Malaysia was reported to record over 80 percent of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed occupancy rate for more than 6 months and only dropped to an average of 66.6 percent in early October.
Responding to the specific and critical needs of hospitals, Bosch joined hands with Great Heart Charity Association to donate an Arterial Blood Gases Machine (ABG) for Hospital Sungai Buloh; an Intensive Care Closed Incubator for babies, 5,000 units of disposable face shield and 66 units of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for Hospital Ampang worth over RM100,000.
On October 25, President Biden announced the United States will adopt a global air travel policy. This policy prioritizes public health, protecting U.S. citizens and residents as well as those who come to visit us. Effective November 8 all non-citizen, nonimmigrant (not a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, lawful permanent resident, or traveling to the United States on an immigrant visa) airline passengers traveling to the United States, must demonstrate proof of vaccination as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Order prior to boarding a U.S. bound aircraft. More details regarding what constitutes full vaccination are available on this page of the CDC website.
Fully vaccinated travelers will continue to be required to show a pre-departure negative test taken within three (3) days of travel to the United States prior to boarding. This applies to all travelers – U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents (LPRs), and foreign nationals. To further strengthen protections, unvaccinated travelers – whether U.S. citizens, LPRs, or the small number of excepted unvaccinated foreign nationals – will now need to test within one (1) day of departure. Additional information may be found on CDC’s website.
Passengers will need to show their vaccination status, and airlines will need to:
- Match the name and date of birth to confirm the passenger is the same person reflected on the proof of vaccination.
- Determine that the record was issued by an official source (e.g., public health agency, government agency) in the country where the vaccine was given.
- Review the essential information for determining if the passenger meets CDC’s definition for fully vaccinated such as vaccine product, number of vaccine doses received, date(s) of administration, site (e.g., vaccination clinic, healthcare facility) of vaccination.
Airlines must deny boarding to passengers who do not meet these requirements or those who test positive for COVID-19.
For additional information or if you have specific questions, please contact your airline and visit the CDC’s website.
NOTE: U.S. citizens in countries where adequate COVID-19 testing is not available or who may not be able to satisfy the requirements, should be prepared to remain in place until such time as they can meet the requirements.
Actions to Take:
- Monitor the CDC website for the latest guidance regarding testing requirements.
- Check with your air carriers or travel representative prior to departure for the United States.
- Check COVID-19 Country Specific Information pages for updated information on COVID-19 related to the availability of testing.
- Visit travel.state.gov to view individual Travel Advisories for the most urgent threats to safety and security.
- Visit the Department of Homeland Security’s website on the latest travel restrictions to the United States.
- Click here for our Travel to the U.S. FAQs.
