Promoting Wellness and Work Life Balance
To promote a balanced and healthy lifestyle, PolyU provides on-going support to our staff in a number of areas. During the reporting period, the University organized a number of sports courses, health talks, mental health education programmes, and recreational visits. Our wellness programmes promote awareness of the importance of work-life balance to all on-campus stakeholders including our staff.
Our Mental Wellness Clinic was established in September 2016 to provide mental health assessment, comprehensive clinical assessment, medical counseling, drug treatment, referrals and medical follow-up actions for both staff members and students on campus. In addition, PolyU has appointed Hong Kong Christian Service to provide employee counseling services. It runs a 24-hour Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) hotline. The EAP aims to assist staff in preventing, identifying and resolving personal, psychological, social, family or work-related concerns.
[Photo]: The University’s Mental Wellness Clinic was established in 2016
During the year under review, the Human Resources Office (HRO) and the University Health Services (UHS) organized a wide range of health promotion and educational activities on topics related to health, stress management and self-care. These events were designed for all staff members. We particularly encouraged department heads and supervisors to attend these events, so that they can attain the basic skills and knowledge to detect signs of mental challenges as early as possible.
In 2017/18, PolyU staff accumulated approximately 500 hours of training on various work-life balance topics including “Dance with Stress”, “Psychological First Aid”, “Be Alive with Brain Gym”, and others. In addition to regular training sessions, PolyU has also organized annual Work-life Balance Month since 2010. This year, a wide variety of activities and workshops were organized to create awareness and interests in work-life balance and encourage our colleagues to develop an active and balanced lifestyle.
[Photo]: Spine Stretching Workshop held during Work-Life Balance Month