Throughout much of the past year, occupational health risks and incidents have been a particular focus for media outlets across the country, and it’s not hard to see why: Surveys conducted across nearly two dozen countries reveal that Singapore reigns as the most sleep-deprived nation in the world, boasting the longest working hours in the APAC region. Moreover, as Singapore charts its hottest decade on record, findings from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) reveal that heat-related illnesses and fatalities are up, as are all occupational accidents, injuries, and diseases.

With these data points in mind, mounting pressure is now being put on employers to appropriately respond to such increasing risks to their employees’ health and overall wellbeing. So far, MOM has already implemented mandatory hot weather work breaks and other related rules to protect outdoor workers from heat-related hazards, and in the last year have issued more than 400 fines and stop-work orders to organizations failing to follow workplace safety regulations. This again comes as MOM reveals that occupational diseases have increased by 60 percent, with the number of accidents and injuries double what it was the previous year.

Leading Types of Occupational Health Risks and Their Complications

To keep pace with the growing demand for better health and safety regulations, it is crucial that employers first familiarize themselves with the major risk factors associated with death, disability, injury, or illness in their particular workplace, and the specific complications that they produce. Studies conducted within the construction, manufacturing, and transportation and storage industries—sectors with by and large the highest shares of both fatal and non-fatal accidents and injuries, according to MOM findings—reveal the leading causes of injury and illness to include:

• Long working hours/overtime work
• Irregular shifts and inflexible schedules
• Unrealistic time pressures and tight deadlines
• Insufficient breaks or meal periods
• Exposure to/contact with extreme temperatures (e.g., excessive heat)
• Exposure to/contact with harmful substances (e.g., air pollutants, smoking)
• Loud noises or bright lights
• Poor housekeeping procedures (e.g., poor sanitation, insufficient PPE, dress code violations)
• Ergonomic risks, including:
  • Repetitive movement (e.g., lifting, pushing, pulling, reaching, bending, etc.)
  • Forceful exertion
  • Awkward posture
  • Stationary or sedentary positions
  • Compression or contact stress
  • Vibrations

The complications arising from these conditions are vast, encompassing both acute disease and disorder, as well as secondary health problems caused by adverse behavioral adaptations. For example, research conducted among Singapore’s youngest workers has revealed that pressure to work long hours coupled with toxic workplace cultures that deprioritize worker wellbeing, health, and safety (e.g., insufficient breaks, poor dietary interventions), has resulted in an uptick in premature death and disability due to poor diet, exercise, and sleep habits, as young adults sacrifice all three to keep up with their work demands. Likewise, for workers in the transport and storage industry especially, the normalization of smoking or tobacco use as well as the consumption of junk foods (e.g., sweet or sugary drinks, “fast food,” ultra-processed foods) and irregular sleep patterns due to shift times extends to their personal lives as well.

As a result, findings reveal that Singapore touts one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world, one of the highest rates of obesity among all APAC nations, and, as mentioned, one of the highest shares of sleep deprivation, as only a fourth of Singaporean adults get the required minimum of 7 hours of sleep each night.

Further diseases and disorders inspired by such behavioral changes along with other aforementioned working conditions include:

• Cardiovascular disease
• High blood pressure
• Tachycardia (fast heartbeat)
• Musculoskeletal disorders, commonly:
  • Back injuries
  • Chronic neck or back pain
  • Tendinitis
  • Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Respiratory disease
• Heatstroke
• Insomnia
• Cancers, commonly:
  • Mesothelioma
  • Lung cancer
  • Leukemia

The Role of Employers: Solutions for Fulfilling One’s Duty of Care

As some studies have pointed out, the combination of a rapidly aging population with a tight labor market make the health, safety, and wellbeing of one’s current workforce something that employers should care about, if for no other reasons than self-serving ones. As it stands, the annual cost of occupational diseases and injuries to employers in Singapore is in the billions. This includes costs related to higher healthcare spending, higher sick leave and absenteeism, higher turnover, legal fees and fines due to WSH violations.

WSH guidelines make for another reason why employers should care about employee safety and wellbeing, as outlined in such legislation include the requirements that employers:

• Conduct risk and health assessments
• Maintain a safe work environment
• Ensure adequate safety measures are taken for any hazardous machinery, equipment, chemical
• Institute a robust and rehearsed emergency response
• Provide sufficient instruction, training, and supervision

But aside from all that, employers should care about employee health and safety simply because it’s the right and just thing to do, and it’s what employees deserve. As people in charge of where workers spend at least a third of their lives, employers have an obligation to ensure that this considerable portion of their life is spent in harmony—lest the remaining two-thirds become shrouded by illness or injury.

For as it happens, studies have shown that, within the construction, manufacturing, and transportation and storage industries, rates of smoking, poor dietary habits, physical inactivity, cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal disorders, and the like are all statistically higher compared to those among the general population—sometimes even at double the rate (as is the case with smoking). This suggests that these work environments pose an excessive and thus inexcusable risk of death, disease, and disability to employees.

With that said, the swift mitigation of such adverse working conditions becomes paramount to upholding one’s duty of care. To do so both quickly and effectively, employers may seek to collaborate with a wellbeing solutions provider on the following strategies:

• Organizational health assessments, questionnaires, and biometric health screenings: These may help employers to first understand the health profiles of their workforce (including blood pressure, BMI, cholesterol, etc.), and identify existing or potential health conditions already present in their workplace that will need to be addressed. These tools may also allow employers to monitor the prevalence of occupational risk factors and leverage employee feedback as a means for developing strategies to mitigate them
• Training and learning solutions: In the context of occupational health and safety, these trainings may cover a variety of topics to promote a health-conscious workforce, including:
  • The importance of sleep, nutrition, and exercise
  • The dangers of work-related stress/chronic stress and its effects on physical health
  • The dangers of heat stress and other occupational hazards
  • How to identify signs of occupational illness or injury
  • How to prevent occupational illness or injury
  • How to access professional care
  • How to protect oneself and others at work
  • And more
• Targeted support interventions: Especially for blue-collar workers, this may include interventions like tobacco cessation coaching, return-to-work programs for employees recovering from long-term sick leave due to past injuries or illness, and support for burnout recovery
• Wellness coaching: Through this service, coaches may work with employees to develop personalized and attainable wellness plans that empower them to manage weight and stress levels; maintain a healthy diet; exercise regularly; and practice other positive lifestyle habits while continuing to meet work demands
• Wellbeing ambassadors: By instituting a wellbeing ambassador program, employees may receive training from professionally licensed clinicians on how to promote a proactively healthy work environment from within; serve as a guidepost for employees struggling to practice safe and healthy habits at work or at home; and direct peers to the appropriate source of support
• Crisis support: This may include on-site or virtual support needed to (i) promote staff resilience and minimize workplace disruptions following a traumatic event, such as an accident or fatality; (ii) respond appropriately and promptly to the crisis event; and (iii) develop a plan to prevent it from happening again
• And more

At the end of the day—and especially for blue-collar industries—employers can’t always prevent everything bad from happening; they can’t completely rid their workplace of all the risk factors associated with poor health outcomes. Tight deadlines, for instance, are left to the whims of supply-and-demand. Ergonomic risks can oftentimes otherwise be described as “the nature of the job.” And environmental risks—such as extreme temperatures or poor outdoor air quality—are out of employers’ hands. Nevertheless, there is much that can be done to promote a resilient, informed, and health- and safety-conscious workforce; one in which employees understand the risks they might encounter in the workplace, how those risks might impact their health, and what measures they can take to avoid or lessen the effects of such risks moving forward.