Press Release
National Conciliation and Mediation Board
January 27, 2017

LA UNION – Holcim Philippines, Incorporated promptly got off to start 2017 with a pre-emptive action to curb workplace stress through a stress management seminar.

Mr. Reynaldo Bondoc, HR Manager for the La Union Plant, pursued the activity that took place on January 19, 2017 at one of the company’s conference rooms.

“I heard them,” Bondoc said referring to the remarks of the employees being stressed at work. “On top of that, there was also a growing request for “soft training”, he added, in contrast to “hard trainings” that typically deal with technical work skills.

The learning session entitled “Managing Workplace Stress” aims to better understand the common forms of stress and how it may affect one’s health, work environment, co-workers relations and customer pressures. It also intend to provide awareness on how to manage, minimize and deal with stress when stressful situations arise.

“Our body is hard wired to respond to any type of threat to help us survive the given situation,” Sr. LEO Panem emphasized. “Interestingly, the hormones that the body produces during emergencies are the same ones secreted when we are under work pressure because our system treats workplace pressure as threats,” he further explained.

Work-related stressors and its causes were individually discussed during the seminar. It was learned that, while it may seem that stress comes from the outside, the reality is that it is an internal matter. It is something entirely based on perception,” he added. “It is not what happens to us but rather our response to what happens and response is something we can choose,” Panem said.

The learning session also put emphasis on management responsibility over stress management. “It is a management issue,” Panem told the management. However, managing workplace stress is the responsibility of the employer and employee. Effective stress management aids productivity, motivation and decision making. Stress at work can lead to problems for the individual, working relationship to the overall working environment. These issues may include lowered self-esteem and poor concentration skills for the employee. The employer may suffer from increasing customer complaint, staff turnover and days due to sickness.

“This was a good one for us,” Mr. Bondoc said, who was looking forward to alleviate workplace pressure in building up. “This will be beneficial especially that we are gearing up for our upcoming CBA negotiations come March or April,” he said. –Lester B. Panem