What Do We Know About Workplace Mental Health?
- Brainz Magazine
- Feb 8, 2022
- 6 min read
Written by: Ilham N Musayev, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
The subject of Mental Health at the workplace is not anymore optional and has rather become a critical and important area of focus nowadays.
This is especially relevant considering that the work environment and risk circumstances at every workplace could negatively affect mental health.
World Health Organization shares the following key facts about the mental health at workplace:
Work is good for mental health, but a negative working environment can lead to physical and mental health problems.
Depression and anxiety have a significant economic impact; the estimated cost to the global economy is US$ 1 trillion per year in lost productivity.
Harassment and bullying at work are commonly reported problems and can have a substantial adverse impact on mental health.
There are many effective actions that organizations can take to promote mental health in the workplace; such actions may also benefit productivity.
For every US$ 1 put into scaled up treatment for common mental disorders, there is a return of US$ 4 in improved health and productivity.
…and indicating the following risks: Risks to mental health include:
inadequate health and safety policies.
poor communication and management practices.
limited participation in decision-making or low control over one’s area of work.
low levels of support for employees.
inflexible working hours; and
unclear tasks or organizational objectives.
So, the main question now is how is mental health defined?
According to https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ mental health is defined as: “Mental health refers to cognitive, behavioral, and emotional well-being. It is all about how people think, feel, and behave. People sometimes use the term “mental health” to mean the absence of a mental disorder.
Mental health can affect daily living, relationships, and physical health.
However, this link also works in the other direction. Factors in people’s lives, interpersonal connections, and physical factors can all contribute to mental health disruptions.
Looking after mental health can preserve a person’s ability to enjoy life. Doing this involves reaching a balance between life activities, responsibilities, and efforts to achieve psychological resilience.”
One important takeaway from all above is that mental health is not only related to physical health and social well-being but is a key contributor to end health of every individual.
Considering that mental health impacts human performance high importance should be given to wellness factors in every workplace.
There are a lot of red flags that indicate people are exposed to mental health problems:
These could be, but are not limited to the following:
a) You feel that not enjoying the life
b) It seems to you that you are not aligned with people around you (home, work, friends)
c) Your mood changes too much and it continues over the course of 2-3 weeks.
If you got into any of the above or similar feelings it is highly recommended to approach your health advisor or doctor immediately.
Let’s now explore what it means to be affected by mental health problems at work and how it lands on employees:
a) The first and immediate one is being disengaged, demotivated, and isolated. Even if employees are being present at work, their thoughts can not be concentrated and focused.
b) The natural impact of the above expressed in making irrational decisions, low employee commitment and generally being nonproductive.
c) One of the impacts of workplace mental health is that people could feel drained and overly tired and that reflects in all interactions with colleagues and management.
d) And last but not least, employees experiencing mental health issues may come out as aggressive, not supportive and with other unpredicted behaviors not specific to them.
With all above said every employer now is playing a critical role on softening the impacts of mental health issues and providing tools and resources to support their employees.
There could be various approaches applied in this regard:
Providing various programs or tools that assist employees with personal or work-related issues. Normally, these programs are set up to be online, anonymous and guarantee a high level of confidentiality.
Providing flexible working conditions and environment to employees. This is focused to releasing the stress and giving employees to structure their working schedules according to their needs and constraints.
Next popular approach is that employees are providing with self-assessment tools and questionnaires to assess the level of mental health concerns in their organizations.
I trust all the above insights provide good high-level information about mental health and its impact on the workplace and employees.
Let’s now dive into the reason why employees refrain from talking about mental health at the workplace.
In spite of fact that people now increasingly talking about mental health, however there are still numerous cases when talking about mental health problems is not welcomed, bullied and ended with discrimination. As a result, people who are having mental health problems have no other options as hiding their feelings because of potentially being confronted with related violence, discrimination or treated unfairly because of raising these issues. However, when the mental health theme is being supported at the workplace this naturally creates a positive environment and culture where people are encouraged to be open, and it is easier for them to speak about mental health concerns without fear and other issues mentioned above. This can dramatically impact the entire organization and create positive trends not only in productivity and in all other aspects including attrition rates.
As a conclusion to this important conversation, I wanted to focus on two important factors:
How company leaders play a critical role in supporting mental wellness in the workplace
Leaders in every organization as a part of their duties going forward should prioritize assessing their employees’ mental and emotional health by understanding what factors to measure and how to proactively be aware of them. Understanding how to support mental health at work is also paramount for building modern, easy, and impactful well-being programs, which in turn lead to better business and human outcomes.
We all know that leaders control the flow of work and set the goals and expectations that others need to deliver.
Setting up unrealistic expectations, unreasonable workloads, and not realistic deadlines obviously leads to high-stress levels and leads people to consider longer working hours. In other words, leaders can set the tone for good mental health in the workplace and must be responsible for this important factor going forward.
What are key actions and strategies that can help promoting mental health positively across organization?
These could be:
a) As mentioned above, make available various programs or tools supporting employee mental health.
b) Regular specific conversations and face to face (or virtual) check-ins with employees to ensure that they are not exposed to recession or despondence.
c) Resolving root causes, not just symptoms of mental health. Organizations and its leaders must know which kind of approaches work better to address this subject. Leaders should be proactively involved in resolving relevant root causes for their teams and offer timely support.
d) Ensure that employees are using their vacation and recreation allowances on a timely and balanced manner and not just certain period of time (summer only or end of the year when these allowances are about to expire)
e) Build an environment where employees (especially colleagues) trust each other, engaged into various spectrum of team building activities (not just lunch or dinner) and being challenged by the work which they do.
Going forward workplace mental wellness definitely demands a shift in culture with more mindfulness, vulnerability, empathy, compassion, and sustainable approaches at the workplace.
Ilham N Musayev, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Ilham N Musayev, is a mentor and coach (outside of the company his works for) who helps people to unlock their potential in career and personal development. He also helps in area of personal effectiveness, setting realistic goals and becoming organized and structured.
Ilham also helps to re-gain the [lost] confidence and look to issues and problems from a different perspective. Another area of his support is helping to cultivate servant leadership via coaching and mentoring technics.
Overall, he is an energy sector professional with 23+ years of practical experience obtained by working in one of the leader companies in this sector. Ilham’s experience is very multilayered. He worked and gained his experience from following functions: Wells, PSCM, Operations, Global Projects by mainly providing project controls support.
For the last three years he worked in Modernization and Transformation and Agile Design Teams and helped his company to transform to new ways of working. He currently is a part of Agility team and as an agile coach supports the company by implementing agile ways of working.
Ilham holds following professional certifications and accreditations: ICF-ACC | ICF Member | PARA | PARP | PSM I | PAL I | PSPO I | PMP® | ICAgile ICP-ACC/ATF | MSc. PM | EMBA.
Ilham’s position is that staying open for support, serving people as a leader, and helping people to grow is what wins heart and minds and is the only answer to all questions.
His mission: “Aspire to inspire, before we expire”.
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