Hand reflexology can instantly ease away stress, headaches and pain. It doesn’t matter if you are an office exec who gets tension headaches or simply someone who wants to reduce trips to the doctor. Hand reflexology benefits everyone. Massaging certain points on the palm can instantly relieve stress- which is the main cause of many diseases out there.

Here are some of hand exercises tips recommended by Advanced Health Group:

1) Interlocking fingers – Cross your 10 fingers with strength and slowly loosen the grip. Repeat this 3 to 5 times. It will stimulate the central nervous system and release stress from working or studying.

2) Fingertip massage – With your palm facing up, press and massage each finger entirely for 1 minute. Spend more time on aching fingertips. This helps to reduce headaches and boosts concentration. Massage the thumb for the brain, index finger for digestive system, middle finger for heart, ring finger for liver and the pinky for your kidney.

3) Finger stretching – Cross your fingers and extend your arms forward to maximum length, hold them there and move up for 3 to 5 times. This stretches your arms and prevents hands, arms, shoulder and waist discomfort. This exercise is ideal for workers who spend the day facing computers.

4) Piano playing – To prevent cardiovascular diseases, pretend you are playing the piano on the table for 3 minutes. This is especially good for those who party hard and entertain.

Are you falling sick often and feeling more stressed out at work? If your office has an open-plan layout, there is a possibility that this office design could be the cause of your condition.

Research has found that having an open-plan design can have an overwhelmingly negative impact on employees, with 90% reporting a deterioration of health and adverse psychological effects. Conflict, elevated blood pressure and rapid staff turnover are all associated with open-plan offices as well.

“Employees can face a lot of problems like the loss of privacy, loss of identity, low work productivity and low job satisfaction when working in an open plan work environment,” says Dr Vinesh Oomen, research author from the Queensland University of Technology.

So while an open-plan office can help save on precious space and promote higher interaction among co-workers, it can also make you sick and stressed as well. What do you think? Do the benefits of an open plan environment outweigh the costs?

Via AFP

Apparently Google wants to do more than just help employees develop their career and skill sets as they are interested in employees’ spirituality.  At a recently held a spirituality seminar called “Happiness and Its Causes”,  one of Google’s top employees talked about a new school on Google University – the School of Personal Growth.

Chade-Meng Tan, a panelist at the conference and one of Google’s early engineers suggested that Google’s School of Personal Growth is a futuristic model for every workplace. “Google wants to help Googlers grow as human beings on all levels,” Tan said in his presentation.  Employees can take classes that deal with mental development, emotional development, holistic health and well-being, and a Buddhist notion of “beyond the self”. Classes are aptly named “The Neuroscience of Empathy” and “Search Inside Yourself.”

The company’s strategy is to boost the brainstorming powers of Google’s  crème de la crème and their powers of self- examination. Monika Broecker, a former leadership coach and therapist with Google, who was an architect of the program, said, “It’s very effective because studies have proven that if people are relaxed and open, they won’t repeat the same ideas and mistakes. They become more creative.”

Have you heard of any other companies engaging in such less conventional programs? It does sound useful to me, because when everything else seems to be falling apart or stressing you out, it would definitely be useful to locate the inner strength to help tide you over.

Google has made no public announcement about their educational endeavor but to read more, click here.

Much talk is going on right now on whether the US government should bail out their local automobile industry (ie. Chrysler, General Motors and Ford). Part of the reason why these manufacturers are unable to compete with the likes of Honda and Toyota is because of the high pension wages and employee healthcare insurance which the Big Three companies have to foot. This is unlike in countries in Japan, where employee insurance is covered by the government.

According to a Washington Post article:

The Big Three pay much higher wages than production workers are paid in the nonunion auto firms and in the general economy. And the health-care costs of current workers and retired union members are an enormous additional burden.

Of course the whole blame cannot be placed on the cost of employee salaries and healthcare alone. The failure to produce anything other than SUVs and poor senior management is also reason for why Detroit is failing.

But it brings up a  pertinent question. In a globalised economy where bottom-line costs help determine how competitive a company is, who should bear healthcare costs? The government, employers or employees themselves?

I was sitting beside the very charismatic CEO of Opus IT Services, Charles Fan, earlier at the Enterprise 50 awards lunch today when this subject came up. From his perspective running a local SME, healthcare costs is definitely an issue which he deals with, and one which needs to be kept under control.

But even within MNCs, there is a trend is of moving away from an all-comprehensive healthcare package. More companies are starting to ask employees to co-pay part of the insurance or/and medication.

It is inevitable that healthcare cost is Asia will keep on rising due to longer lifespans and a shift to chronic lifestyle diseases. So what are some strategies companies are doing to keep costs low? Who should bear the onus of covering employee healthcare?

What are your thoughts?