Dealing with Mental Health in the Workplace
Mental health is a matter of public health concern. Healthcare professionals are increasingly acknowledging that mental health is a medical condition that can be managed effectively with treatment.
In the workplace, mental health is also gaining recognition as a key to a happy, productive workplace. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 12 billion working days are lost every year to depression and anxiety alone, costing the global economy US$1 trillion each year from reduced productivity.
Closer to home, Naluri's State of Employee Mental Health and Well-being in Southeast Asia 2022 report also highlights mental health in Southeast Asia, with with over half (53.4%) of the respondents reporting symptoms of severe and extremely severe depression, 53.1% reporting symptoms of severe and extremely severe anxiety, and 40.4% reporting symptoms of severe and extremely severe stress.
The report also highlights the prevalence of burnout among employees, with 60% of workers in Southeast Asia experiencing severe or extremely severe symptoms of burnout. Toxic workplace behaviour was cited as the leading cause of burnout, with 70% of employees reporting this as a contributing factor. If left untreated, 42% of employees will leave their jobs due to burnout.
Nevertheless, there remains a stigma around mental health, particularly in the workplace. This prevents mental health sufferers from seeking the help that they need, which can be treated effectively at low cost. Often, employees that admit to suffering from mental health issues are also discriminated against in the workplace.
With this in mind, what can you, as an employer, do to foster mental health in the workplace?
Risk Drivers of Mental Health at Work
Mental health risks at work, also known as psychosocial risks, are stressors that relate to work and the workplace. These include:
- Excessive workload
- Unreasonable deadlines
- Working long hours
- Lack of control over job design
- Unsafe working conditions
- Poor culture that enables negative conduct
- Relationship problems with colleagues
- Harassment and bullying
- Discrimination and exclusion
- Poor prospects for career advancement
- Job insecurity and precarity
- Low wages
- Unreasonable work-life balance
Psychosocial risks are found across all sectors, whether blue-collar or white-collar. External factors like economic recessions or public health emergencies can exacerbate these risks.
These risks come at a high cost to employee health and wellbeing, which in turn affects the organization’s productivity. Stress can result in physical symptoms, such as memory loss, peptic ulcers, inflammatory bowel diseases and musculoskeletal disorders. In the longer term, it can cause hypertension as well as other heart and cardiovascular diseases. The outcome of all of this is absenteeism and employee turnover.
But the good news is that psychosocial risks can be managed. Most of the risk factors are within your control to mitigate in a cost-effective manner.
Managing Psychosocial Risks
You can manage psychosocial risks using several strategies. Among them are:
- Improving communication. Often, stress comes from uncertainties and misunderstandings between superiors and/or colleagues. Organizations can decrease this source of stress by encouraging an open line of communication at all times, as well as being able to discuss issues freely. Too often, employees are afraid to open up, leading to declining mental health.
- Aligning performance expectations. This is closely related to communication, as sometimes managers expect employees to perform unreasonable tasks. Organizations need to give employees a chance to communicate their concerns and align expectations with their manager. This is especially important in top-down cultures.
- Listening to employees. Sometimes, those at the top can become disconnected from the reality on the ground. But by listening to those closest to the action, it can reveal a lot about an organization’s underlying issues. Undertaking exercises like pulse surveys and maintaining open communication goes a long way towards solving this.
- Encouraging diversity and inclusion. Diversity and inclusion does not just mean hiring different ethnicities and genders. It also means giving everyone a voice and listening to a plurality of opinions. Since isolation can also be a source of psychosocial risk, encouraging inclusion as well as diversity means that everyone feels welcomed as part of the organization.
Dealing with Employees with Mental Disorders
At the outset, we must explain that a mental disorder is not someone ‘going crazy’. Instead, mental disorders span a spectrum of mild symptoms like anxiety, to serious conditions requiring medication like schizophrenia. The WHO estimates that one in eight people worldwide live with a mental disorder.
There is no one cause for mental disorders. It can arise from work, family, community, or any combination of circumstances. Adversity like poverty, violence, disability, and inequality are also risk factors.
With proper care, anyone that suffers from a mental disorder can also be a productive member of society. Organizations need to send a clear signal that mental health is a priority, and being open about it will lead to support. To do this, organizations can clearly state that mental health is equivalent to physical health.
Still, sometimes employees suffering from mental health issues don’t seek out help due to fear of being stigmatized. There may be no outward sign of it, but sometimes the employee may be:
- Increasingly withdrawn from socializing with colleagues
- Struggling to get organized
- Appearing to be tired or losing interest in something they previously enjoyed
- Experiencing mood swings
- Increasing bad habits like smoking and drinking
Opening them up to a conversation about their mental health is not easy, but it should be done in an open, supportive, and non-judgmental fashion.
If they decide to seek help, you can refer them to a company medical practitioner or panel clinic, who can then refer them to a psychiatrist. Allow them to take sick leave to begin the process of healing. As long as their condition does not significantly impact their work, you do not need to take any further action.
Sometimes they may need adjustments to their work, such as more frequent breaks to manage stress. Or, they may request to work flexible hours. Again, so long as their work output remains good, any reasonable adjustments can be made as long as it’s not disruptive to other colleagues.
However, if their work is severely impacted, this can cause problems especially if the employee in question is frequently absent. In this case, a short period of unpaid leave can be helpful in supporting employees suffering from depression or a personal crisis. You should also be supportive in managing their eventual return to work by maintaining an open line of communication. Above all, any employee suffering from a mental disorder must be treated with kindness, compassion, and respect.
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Mental health is a matter of public health concern. Healthcare professionals are increasingly acknowledging that mental health is a medical condition that can be managed effectively with treatment.
In the workplace, mental health is also gaining recognition as a key to a happy, productive workplace. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 12 billion working days are lost every year to depression and anxiety alone, costing the global economy US$1 trillion each year from reduced productivity.
Closer to home, Naluri’s State of Employee Mental Health and Well-being in Southeast Asia 2022 report also highlights mental health in Southeast Asia, with with over half (53.4%) of the respondents reporting symptoms of severe and extremely severe depression, 53.1% reporting symptoms of severe and extremely severe anxiety, and 40.4% reporting symptoms of severe and extremely severe stress.
The report also highlights the prevalence of burnout among employees, with 60% of workers in Southeast Asia experiencing severe or extremely severe symptoms of burnout. Toxic workplace behaviour was cited as the leading cause of burnout, with 70% of employees reporting this as a contributing factor. If left untreated, 42% of employees will leave their jobs due to burnout.
Nevertheless, there remains a stigma around mental health, particularly in the workplace. This prevents mental health sufferers from seeking the help that they need, which can be treated effectively at low cost. Often, employees that admit to suffering from mental health issues are also discriminated against in the workplace.
With this in mind, what can you, as an employer, do to foster mental health in the workplace?
Risk Drivers of Mental Health at Work
Mental health risks at work, also known as psychosocial risks, are stressors that relate to work and the workplace. These include:
- Excessive workload
- Unreasonable deadlines
- Working long hours
- Lack of control over job design
- Unsafe working conditions
- Poor culture that enables negative conduct
- Relationship problems with colleagues
- Harassment and bullying
- Discrimination and exclusion
- Poor prospects for career advancement
- Job insecurity and precarity
- Low wages
- Unreasonable work-life balance
Psychosocial risks are found across all sectors, whether blue-collar or white-collar. External factors like economic recessions or public health emergencies can exacerbate these risks.
These risks come at a high cost to employee health and wellbeing, which in turn affects the organization’s productivity. Stress can result in physical symptoms, such as memory loss, peptic ulcers, inflammatory bowel diseases and musculoskeletal disorders. In the longer term, it can cause hypertension as well as other heart and cardiovascular diseases. The outcome of all of this is absenteeism and employee turnover.
But the good news is that psychosocial risks can be managed. Most of the risk factors are within your control to mitigate in a cost-effective manner.
Managing Psychosocial Risks
You can manage psychosocial risks using several strategies. Among them are:
- Improving communication. Often, stress comes from uncertainties and misunderstandings between superiors and/or colleagues. Organizations can decrease this source of stress by encouraging an open line of communication at all times, as well as being able to discuss issues freely. Too often, employees are afraid to open up, leading to declining mental health.
- Aligning performance expectations. This is closely related to communication, as sometimes managers expect employees to perform unreasonable tasks. Organizations need to give employees a chance to communicate their concerns and align expectations with their manager. This is especially important in top-down cultures.
- Listening to employees. Sometimes, those at the top can become disconnected from the reality on the ground. But by listening to those closest to the action, it can reveal a lot about an organization’s underlying issues. Undertaking exercises like pulse surveys and maintaining open communication goes a long way towards solving this.
- Encouraging diversity and inclusion. Diversity and inclusion does not just mean hiring different ethnicities and genders. It also means giving everyone a voice and listening to a plurality of opinions. Since isolation can also be a source of psychosocial risk, encouraging inclusion as well as diversity means that everyone feels welcomed as part of the organization.
Dealing with Employees with Mental Disorders
At the outset, we must explain that a mental disorder is not someone ‘going crazy’. Instead, mental disorders span a spectrum of mild symptoms like anxiety, to serious conditions requiring medication like schizophrenia. The WHO estimates that one in eight people worldwide live with a mental disorder.
There is no one cause for mental disorders. It can arise from work, family, community, or any combination of circumstances. Adversity like poverty, violence, disability, and inequality are also risk factors.
With proper care, anyone that suffers from a mental disorder can also be a productive member of society. Organizations need to send a clear signal that mental health is a priority, and being open about it will lead to support. To do this, organizations can clearly state that mental health is equivalent to physical health.
Still, sometimes employees suffering from mental health issues don’t seek out help due to fear of being stigmatized. There may be no outward sign of it, but sometimes the employee may be:
- Increasingly withdrawn from socializing with colleagues
- Struggling to get organized
- Appearing to be tired or losing interest in something they previously enjoyed
- Experiencing mood swings
- Increasing bad habits like smoking and drinking
Opening them up to a conversation about their mental health is not easy, but it should be done in an open, supportive, and non-judgmental fashion.
If they decide to seek help, you can refer them to a company medical practitioner or panel clinic, who can then refer them to a psychiatrist. Allow them to take sick leave to begin the process of healing. As long as their condition does not significantly impact their work, you do not need to take any further action.
Sometimes they may need adjustments to their work, such as more frequent breaks to manage stress. Or, they may request to work flexible hours. Again, so long as their work output remains good, any reasonable adjustments can be made as long as it’s not disruptive to other colleagues.
However, if their work is severely impacted, this can cause problems especially if the employee in question is frequently absent. In this case, a short period of unpaid leave can be helpful in supporting employees suffering from depression or a personal crisis. You should also be supportive in managing their eventual return to work by maintaining an open line of communication. Above all, any employee suffering from a mental disorder must be treated with kindness, compassion, and respect.
