On July 20, 26-year-old Anna Sebastian Perayil, an employee at a Pune-based Ernst and Young passed away due to a heart attack. Only four months into the job and away from her family for the first time, Anna was a free-spirited person. Her mother, in an open letter, claimed that she had died due to "overwhelming work stress." This is one of the many incidents that have happened over the years, not just in India but around the globe. In the hustle culture at workplaces, where expectations escalate rapidly, taking care of your health often takes a backseat. Most workplaces promote a culture where personal struggles are expected to be left at the door and vulnerability is perceived as a liability. However, as organizations strive hard to extract the most work from their employees, they take little notice of the deteriorating mental health of their human assets who are collectively responsible for the ever-growing business. On 10th October 2024, let us celebrate World Mental Health Day, which has its theme “It is Time to Prioritize Mental Health in the Workplace”. To understand, how to prioritize mental health at the workplace, read on!

How does work affect your mental health?

Work can play a big role in enhancing our overall health and welfare. In addition to providing financial benefits, your job can add meaning and purpose to your life. It can provide you with a sense of identity, enhance your self-esteem, and offer a much-needed social outlet. However, working in a negative or toxic environment can do the opposite, taking a toll on your emotional health. Factors like long working hours, underpaid jobs, understaffing, lack of support, and harassment in the workplace can surge your stress levels, leading to mental health issues like anxiety, depression, or substance abuse.

As per the World Health Organization, a negative working environment can result in mental and physical health concerns, decreased productivity, absenteeism, and increased substance use. Such an environment can leave us feeling tense, unhappy, and worried about our future. Your work and mental health are interlinked, impacting your job performance and productivity. As per the World Health Organization, 15 per cent of working-age adults were estimated to have a mental disorder in 2019. Globally, approximately 12 billion working days are lost each year to depression and anxiety at a cost of 1 trillion dollars per year in productivity.

For most of us, our workplace environment is usually outside our control. The culture at work is established by our higher authorities like our senior staff members, and we often shy away from voicing our opinions without fear of judgement or risk of losing our jobs. Whatever the concern, there is increasing awareness about prioritizing mental health in the workplace to ensure the good health of the employees who will further help run a successful organization.

How to prioritize mental health at the workplace?

To manage mental health issues among people in the workplace, every organization must apply effective strategies to actively address mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, and burnout within the professional realm. An April 2020 article published in the BMC Psychology Journal highlighted that disclosing a mental health condition could result in fewer chances of getting hired. So, organizations must become open about addressing the employee’s mental health challenges before and after work. An employee’s well-being in the workplace drastically influences both employee health and productivity.

Here are some strategies that can help improve mental health in the workplace:

1. Awareness and sensitization

Prioritizing mental health starts with building awareness and sensitization on mental health and related concerns. Organizations must take steps to disseminate information periodically so that individuals at work can begin to recognize the importance and its impact on their well-being. The organizations must shed light on the causes of mental health challenges like anxiety or depression that are common in the workplace. Awareness is the first step towards treating such silent challenges, suggests psychologist Dr Mimansa Singh Tanwar.

2. Adopt strategies to promote wellbeing

Stress in the workplace should be handled from the overarching concept of well-being through various modalities that focus on reducing stress. For example, organizations can adopt strategies like mindfulness-based approaches that incorporate relaxation techniques, simple mindful activities like eating, walking, breathing or creating mindful spaces for rejuvenation. The organizations can also promote better mental health by encouraging employees to set boundaries between work and personal life by discouraging overtime work and by ensuring regular breaks to employees to relax and recharge.

3. Open communication

When there is a culture of open communication, the employees feel more at ease at work, for they are openly able to voice out their mental health difficulties and seek relevant help when needed. Employees should feel comfortable discussing their issues with their supervisors or HR without fearing repercussions. Workshops and seminars should be arranged that help mitigate the stigma surrounding mental health so that the employees are more likely to ask for help during difficult times.

4. Employee assistance programs (EAPs)

An EAP is a program that offers free or low-cost services to employees and their families to help with personal and work-related issues. In EAPs, along with other health-related periodic check-ups, preventive mental health must be included. Mental Health is at the core of our overall health. Including this, the EAPs will add the much-needed value that is required to prioritize mental health. This program helps provide confidential counselling and support services for employees dealing with such challenges.

5. Psychological first aid

Organisations must include training on psychological first aid to enhance peer-to-peer support and encourage sensitive responses to distress at work. Colleagues and supervisors can act as first responders to the individuals who are showing signs of distress. Based on the principle of Look, Listen and Link, psychological first aid support can really reduce distress and create a comfortable safe environment for individuals at work, reckons the expert.

6. Workload monitoring

Workplaces should ensure that they set realistic and reasonable workload expectations for their employees to prevent burnout. This will ensure that employees are not overwhelmed with excessive workloads.

With the theme of “It is Time to Prioritize Mental Health in the Workplace” in mind, you should celebrate this World Mental Health Day by prioritizing your health and keeping stress levels in check.

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