"Be Kind To Your Mind"

“Be Kind to Your Mind ”  This year’s theme is Workplace Mental Health !

Visualize the color of Monday – what color would that be?

If it’s grey, this quick article might be useful in re-evaluating how your workplace or work is impacting your mental health.

Workplace factors like stress, burnout, discrimination, and stigma can harm employees’ mental health. Chronic stress impacts physical health, while burnout, recognized by the WHO, causes exhaustion and job dissatisfaction. Discrimination, including bias against mental health conditions, and workplace stigma prevent employees from seeking support.

What are the key risks to mental health at the Workplace?

  • Stress: Prolonged exposure to workplace stress impacts both mental and physical health, leading to problems like insomnia, high blood pressure, and heart issues. Do you experience these symptoms recently? Please note that stress level is based on our perception, the same challenging task for two persons may have both perceived that job related stress differently.
  • Burnout: Defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a job-related condition, burnout includes exhaustion, negative attitudes towards work, and reduced performance. Do you feel a sense of drag at the start of the work week? Do you feel ineffective and increasingly cynical? Please note that burnout can occur for both in office and for remote work as well.
  • Discrimination and Stigma: Workplace discrimination based on race, gender, sexual identity, disability, and stigmatization of mental health issues, significantly harm employees’ well-being and increase anxiety or depression risks. Have you felt yourself being treated differently as a result of those characteristics? Was your yearly appraisal fair and helpful?

Effects of Poor Mental Health on Productivity:

  • High Turnover: Toxic work environments are costly, contributing to high employee turnover.
  • Lost Productivity: Depression and anxiety lead to substantial productivity losses, estimated to cost the global economy $1 trillion annually.

Here are some Strategies for Supporting Mental Health at Work:

Intentional Policies:

Promote work-life balance, such as clear “off” hours, and encourage open communication without fear of reprisal. Honoring the time of your employees create less stress. Anwering emails and text messages outside working hours when it becomes a norm, can create resentment.

Generous Benefits:

Offering paid time off (PTO), health and dental benefits, and employee assistance programs (EAPs) can help employees manage stress and seek mental health support. Health insurance and HR benefits that includes mental health therapy claims can go a long way, and promote retention, loyalty and performance in staffs. Creating a clean, conducive work environment is helpful. Imagine spending 7-9 hours daily in a office that feel pleasant with adequate space for your needs? Creating standing office corners for workers who tend to sit too long at the desks, can be a useful idea to promote healthier postures and physical health of your staff.

Education and Training:

Educating managers and employees about mental health reduces stigma and fosters an inclusive environment. Implementing a simple care plan that includes psychological and mental health is not complicated. Is management aware of what is mental health? Focusing on prevention is often better than remedial intervention.

Accommodation of Disabilities and Differences:

Ensuring fair treatment and reasonable accommodations for employees with disability and mental health needs are possible. This might pertain to organizations like governmental and institution, corporations and factory. Limitations and issues ought to be addressed earlier to support the needs of your employees to meet and exceed their job expectations.

Other Proactive Approaches:

Managing workloads, providing flexible working arrangements (for parents, family emergencies), recognition and rewarding loyalty and performance are worth exploring.

All these practices not only promote well-being but also improve retention, morale, and productivity in the workplace.

If you would like to implement EAP into your workplace, please get in touch with us today to explore.