The Chamber of Young Lankan Entrepreneurs (COYLE) has joined hands with theJapan External Trade Cooperation (JETRO) to bring forth the second edition of the “Sri Lanka Corporate Health and Productivity Awards.’’ Following the success of the inaugural event, the event organizers are moving in full force to ensure that the upcoming awards will set in motion an opportunity for more business enterprises to become part of the programme this year as well. The upcoming awards ceremony will be held in January, 2020 and will be taking place in conjunction with the Health and Productivity Management programme in Japan conducted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). Applications for Sri Lankan corporates and entrepreneurs were opened from 1st August 2019 and the deadline will be 15th October.
Following the instigation of last year’s awards ceremony, the country’s enterprise sector witnessed a significant amount of change in their measures towards enhancing and uplifting the health and productivity of their employees. The outreach to the public was also influential as the programme garnered immense interest and recognition for the steps that have been taken as a result.Last year’s winners themselves have reaped benefits and continue to do so and the exposure that they had received as a result of their participation is testimony to the efforts their respective organizations had made in improving the standards of health and productivity among employees.
Sharing her insight on what prompted her company to apply and eventually, win a Sri Lanka Corporate Health and Productivity Award, the Executive Secretary of Nature’s Beauty Creations Ltd., Nilushi Senanayake stated, “Ever since our company was founded, we have been very engaged in the practice of health-related activities for our employees. However, we had never had the opportunity to document those activities or keep tabs on what we had been doing all these years. When we found out about the awards event from COYLE, we felt like we had the experience and the potential to take part in it. As a company that believes in the importance of enhancing the health and productivity aspects of our employees, we wanted to elevate the amount of activities that we had been engaging with, such as offering employees free healthy meals, creating an environment-friendly work setup, maintaining large herbal gardens, including purified drinking water etc.” She further added that these initiatives coupled with the awareness programmes that were offered by COYLE and JETRO enticed them to apply.
Enterprises when faced with predicaments have always benefitted from the implementation of corporate health and wellbeing programmes as it helps to not only create a positive-minded work environment amongst staff but also improve their productivity and retention. Another past winner was Kelani Valley Plantations PLC (KVPL). The company’s Managing Director, Dr. Roshan Rajadurai was instrumental in paving the path for the company to successfully achieve this accolade through his leadership. KVPL, Deputy General Manager, Human Resources, Mr. Anuruddha Gamage disclosed on behalf of the company, that their achievement only means that KVPL would continue to commit to proving a safe and healthy work and social environment for their employees, as they believe that positive individual wellness enables employees to perform optimally and contribute to the success of the company. “We were motivated to implement breakthrough initiatives through successfully extending comprehensive human resource management programmes – spanning healthcare, education, upgrading of living standards and working environment, community capacity building and youth empowerment. Therefore, we highly recommend other companies who practice health and productivity measures to come forward and compete for this prestigious award which will no doubt result in generating recognition for their exceptional contributions,” he added.
To augment the corporate values of enterprises through the promotion of enterprises who actively engage in health and productivity management as well as to expand island-wide health and management programmes in Sri Lanka, a workshop on Health and Productivity Management was held on 30th July 2019. The workshop was conducted by Dr. Yoshiaki Ichikawa, visiting professor of Tama University, Tama, Japan where he helped stimulate interest for enterprises to embrace health and productivity programmes. Furthermore, this allowedworkshop attendees to developtheir knowledge in the field of Health and Productivity Management and gain awareness.
Another organization that competed and won an award was Noritake Lanka Porcelain (Pvt) Ltd. Relaying their take on what the award means for them, the company’s Manager Compliance, Mr. AnandaSubasinghesaid that the award allows them to build up a good image for their enterprise and also encourages employees to become more productive whilst further help boost the employee’s view of working for a company that has been recognized for its best practices in elevating employee health and productivity. He also added, “Whilst this recognition gives us the boost to also connect with awareness resources relevant to health and productivity and work towards improving our employees’ health, we are also able to address the wider social determinants of health in today’s society.”
Applications can be downloaded from https://slchpa.com/home/ and candidates are encouraged to submit applications on or before 15th of October 2019.