Business Reporter
THE National Social Security Authority last week introduced a two-day Wellness Day for its staff, during which employees were able to obtain professional advice on how to stay physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthy.
Doctors, gym instructors, lawyers and a variety of other professional service providers manned booths in the Harare Gardens behind the NSSA head office building, giving NSSA employees the opportunity to learn how to care for every aspect of their health and promote their own wellness.
Employees had the opportunity to have their blood sugar, blood pressure and body mass index checked. Some employees discussed dental issues with dentists who where there and made appointments to visit them at their surgeries.
The Traffic Safety Board had a booth at the Wellness Day where employees were educated on road safety.
Inaugurating the Wellness Day, NSSA general manager, Mr James Matiza, said it was pleasing to note that other employers were placing emphasis on staff wellness and recognising it as an integral component of doing business.
"This realisation came as companies were losing competent staff, experiencing low staff engagement, escalating health insurance and recruitment costs among other negative impacts.
“ As a result this ate into most companies' productive efficiencies," he said.
Mr Matiza added that NSSA plays an important national function as the administrators of both the national pension scheme and the worker's compensation insurance fund.
He said the authority also plays a crucial role in ensuring that all industries provide a safe and healthy working environment through the administration of the Factories and Works Act.
"With such a mammoth task on our shoulders there is need to have a healthy workforce that is able to meet the expectations that this nation has placed on NSSA," he added.
NSSA human resources manager, Mr Kudakwashe Kowo, said the wellness of employees not only affects them as individuals but the way the organisation they work for operates.
She noted that the theme for the Wellness Day was 'strengthening human capacity for productivity'. A reduction in employee ailments would certainly result in increased performance and improve the quality of products and services offered, she said.
Mrs Kowo said the Wellness Day would be held in all the regions of the country to ensure that all of the authority's employees have an opportunity to experience this occasion and obtain professional advice.
NSSA corporate services director, Mr Tendai Mafunda, said the authority has a draft wellness policy which not only addresses HIV and Aids issues but all areas that affect the well being of their staff.
Mr Mafunda added that the service providers that were invited to the Wellness Day came from various backgrounds, providing different expert services aimed at ensuring the total wellness of the authority's employees.
NSSA national workers' committee chairman, Mr Ishmael Mbuzi, thanked NSSA management on behalf of all of the authority's employees.
He said he believed that the Wellness Day would help educate those who had been ignorant about safety and health dangers that they may have been exposing themselves to.