A Great Home and a Caring Community

Staying true to their vision for the community, “A Great Home and A Caring Community”, the People’s Association actively seek their employees to share values, pursue passions, fulfil hopes and treasure memories via workplace health programmes that produces productive and happier staff. Find out more as JobsDB chats to Mr Tan Kim Kee, Group Director (People Cluster) & Chairman of the Worklife-Workplace Health Promotion (WL-WHP) Committee, about the PA health programmes.
“As a Health Facilitator, I enjoy reading on health tips and sharing with my fellow colleagues. Taking care of staff's well-being is essential to any organisation. Implementing a comprehensive Workplace Health Promotion programme will create a healthier and motivated workforce, and in turn improve PA’s productivity and efficiency. “ Jedrick Tan, Manager (Family Life), FLAA.
What activities does your Organisation's health programme consist of?
The PA health programmes consist of phyical activities, healthy eating/cooking sessions, smoking cessation, weight and cholesterol management, mental wellbeing, nutritional health and personal work-life effectiveness. Some of the activities include annual health screening, Fitness Assessments, PA Active Day and Inter-Divisional Games to renew and reinforce our efforts and commitment to promote a healthy workforce.
We also conduct a Lifestyle Survey every two years to find out about the lifestyle habits of our staff. We use the data collected to help us identify the gaps and implement intervention and preventive programmes for our staff.
One of the HPB’s key thrusts is mental health hence, we introduced the Workplace Emotional Health Programme (WEHP) since 2009. The WEHP, which offers staff private counselling, aims to address their emotional needs and help enhance workplace effectiveness. Programmes and activities relating to Mental Health have also been planned to help reduce stress level of staff.
What do you enjoy about your organisation's health programme?
Our workplace health programmes are generally well-received with very good participation from our staff and strongly supported by our senior management. Our programmes are integrated and varied to cater to the different needs of staff.
We also have a different theme each month to tie in with our activities. For example, annually, in the month of October, we hold healthy cooking demonstrations and talks and organise health screening to tie-in with the theme of?
How has the programme benefited you and your fellow colleagues?
The PA’s vision for the community is “A Great Home and A Caring Community, where we share our values, pursue our passions, fulfil our hopes and treasure our memories.”
We are a people-centric organisation. We work with many volunteers and community partners and grassroots leaders. They are usually free in the evenings or weekends and our activities are therefore held mostly on weekends.
“Although the climb is only a 2-minute exercise, it is still better than not doing any exercise at all. Every bit of exercise helps!” Chua Kwang Meng, 2 Head, Quality Management Division on the “Use the Stairs Day”, an initiative by WL-WHP to encourage staff to use the stairs.
By helping our staff better manage their personal and workplace needs, we help them improve their productivity and at the same time, enjoy their work more. Our programmes and activities are offered to staff on a cost-sharing basis and most are heavily subsidised to make it very affordable to all levels. The fact that most programmes are offered regularly and onsite (we have more than 100 offsite units) has made it more convenient for staff to participate. We strongly believe that a healthy workforce leads to more productive and happier staff.