RESEARCH TITLE

A Legal Study on the Effect of Occupational Stress on Employee’s Mental Health in the
Corporate Sector in Malaysia

RESEARCH BACKGROUND

A person spends an average of thirty-nine hours per week at their workplace. Assuming that
a person works for fifty years in their lifetime, they approximately spend 32% of their life at
their workplace. However, excessive workloads have become a nightmare to people towards
their well-being, especially their mental well-being that can give serious effect on their
productivity.

Recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has also predicts that depression will
become the second form of health problem affecting those aged 50 and above after heart
related disease. World Health Organisation (WHO) defines “a healthy job is likely to be one
where the pressures on employees are appropriate in relation to their abilities and resources,
to the amount of control they have over their work, and to the support they receive from people
who matter to them. As health is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity but a positive
state of complete physical, mental and social well-being (WHO, 1986), a healthy working
environment is one in which there is not only an absence of harmful conditions but an absence
of harmful conditions but an abundance of health-promoting ones”. The Malaysian Ministry of
Health has also estimate that more Malaysian will suffer from mental related illness like
depression by year 2020 as the nation reach the fully develop nation status.

Mental wellness of a person cannot be seen and measured by naked eye like how we can see
when someone broke their leg. Mental illness is difficult to be found even by the medical
practitioners. Depression, for example, is one of the most common types of mental illness
found in a person but is always treated as it is something petty. When someone’s mental
illness is not treated correctly, it can be fatal. There are lot of causes of depression at
workplace especially in the corporate sector the causes can be divided into four, the excessive
workloads, the extended working hours, the environment of the workplace and the job
securities issue.

For instance, in 2015; a Japanese woman named Miwa Sado was reported to commit
suicide due to the reason of overworked. According to the reports, she clocked in 150 hours
in a week. Thus, a former banker in the USA said, trying to balance the bank's aggressive
sales goals without doing something illegal and sacrificing her morals pushed her into deep
depression and she almost committed suicide. In the USA, mental wellness is a big issue.
There are hundreds of support groups and if a worker is diagnosed with depression, they are
entitled to the workers’ compensation.

In Malaysia however, mental health is not considered as something as important as

other illness. Although there is an Act on mental health; the Mental Health 2001, it is very rare
to hear cases brought under the Act in relation to stressful working environment. Therefore,
there is a need of the improvement in laws regarding this matter in order to protect the
employees’ mental health.

THE PROBLEM STATEMENT

The extreme stress level in most corporate workers in Malaysia is due to excessive workloads,
people issue, extended working hours that can affect the personal life and the job position
security. Based on the research by The American Institution of Stress (AIS), about 46% of
the main cause of stress level comes from the workloads while 28% are mainly having
problems with the people and atmosphere in the office. About 20% of the employees have
problem in juggling between work and personal lives while the balance of 6% have lack trust
in their job security. These indicate that many issues tend to be the reason for the increased
in stress level of most of the corporate workers.

In Malaysia, Employment Act 1955 provides the regulations that highlight the right of the
workers in many aspects. However, the development of the current labor law is needed as
there is a change in the working landscape in Malaysia for the past years. Thus, failure to
understand and implement the laws as accordingly to follow the latest working trend made the
whole regulations seem to be ineffective. Therefore, this affects the quality of life of the
workers. Muzaffar Syah Mallow in “Occupational Stress in Malaysia: Causes, Effects &
Possible Solutions” suggested that there is no single solution to address the issue on
occupational or work-related stress problem.

Therefore, this study is important because it will investigate and testify the factors of stress
level while examine the current regulations and guidelines provided by the Employment Act
1955. Thus, it will suggest the proper solutions as well as the development holistically of the
current guidelines to provide betterment in life of the corporate workers in Malaysia.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

1. What are the current Malaysian employment laws? Do these laws adequate to serve
the issue pertaining to mental health due to the extreme level of stress faced by the
corporate workers?
2. Whether the current Malaysian employment regulations need some review and
betterment in order to serve the latest working landscape of the corporate world in
Malaysia?
3. Whether the current Malaysian laws are sufficient to safeguard an employee who
mentally suffers as a result of occupational stress?

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

1. To identify and analyse the negative effects of high stress level among the corporate
workers that leads to mental health issue.
2. To compare the laws and regulations of Malaysia and other developing countries such
as Indonesia and Thailand as well as developed countries such as Japan and USA.
3. To suggest reformation in current regulations stated under Employment Act 1955 for
betterment of corporate workers life quality.

FINDING REASON FOR STRESS LEVEL

The report which covered the opinions of 20,000 senior executives and business

owners across 95 countries, revealed that 48 per cent of the Malaysian respondents

felt their stress levels had risen and over 42 per cent reported sleeping less due to

work worries.

Malaysian workers are reporting more stress-related illnesses due to challenging

global economic conditions.

33 percent of respondents also shared their worries about losing their job while

another 32 percent feel less confident about the sector they work in and 53 percent

of respondents report that their family and friends have noticed they are stressed

by work with another 47 percent say that stress is damaging their personal

relationships.