How to ensure sound mental health of employees
Representative picture. news 18.
Mental health issues in the workplace have received increasing attention since the end of the pandemic. Although our understanding of mental health in the workplace and the prevalence of mental illness among professionals is expanding, understanding the basics is still necessary to combat the stigma that persists to this day.
Although mental health issues have always been present among Indian workers, recent events such as COVID-19, its impact and a more open-minded generation in the workplace have brought these issues to the fore. Due to long and demanding work hours, economic uncertainty and peer comparison, particularly on social media platforms, the number of employees affected is significant and the difficulty is significant.
Stress and psychological problems are closely linked
Work-related stress and mental health issues tend to go hand-in-hand, and the symptoms of each can be difficult to distinguish. A person’s existing mental health problem may be more difficult to manage in the face of work-related stress. It can be difficult to determine which came first, a pre-existing mental illness or the stress experienced at work.
Impact of employee stress on business
According to the World Health Organization, 12 billion workdays are lost every year due to depression and anxiety alone.
It is a mistake to ignore the mental health of young professionals. Working under pressure, meeting deadlines, and managing diverse tasks while maintaining positive working relationships can leave an employee feeling overwhelmed and anxious.
Employee burnout, characterized by fatigue, melancholy, cynicism, impatience and poor job performance, can become a major problem for organizations when it comes to the already growing difficulty of balancing work and personal responsibility.
Anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems can coexist, but they are not required for a person to be stressed. Anxiety and despair can exist in someone who has never experienced stress. The differences between the two are mostly related to the reasons and treatments for each condition.
The workplace should be equally responsible for managing employee work stress
To ensure the mental health of their employees, managers should develop, implement and disseminate appropriate plans in the workplace. The workplace should be as responsible for managing work stress as the individual employee.
Mental health spending has been consistently shown to yield a positive return. Employers and the government would do well to prioritize and invest significantly more in improving people’s mental health at a time when productivity is paramount at the national level.
Regardless of their size, companies should raise awareness of mental illness in the workplace and take steps to mitigate or prevent it.
We need to help people with mental health problems thrive, which in turn means that the annual unemployment rate among people with chronic mental health problems is falling significantly. When it comes to mental health in the workplace, we must strive to empower employers of all sizes and industries to improve the wellbeing of their employees through guidance, training, advice and industry benchmarking to improve accountability and learning opportunities .
What is an efficient strategy?
Since COVID-19, the prevalence of mental health problems in India has increased by 20% across all age groups. Concerns about work and adjustments are likely to increase after workers return to the office. It is therefore crucial to improve access to mental health care and create a new framework that reflects the realities of a post-pandemic world.
Creating a healthy work environment by reducing workplace mental health hazards, such as Eg addressing work stress, educating teams about mental health through online resources and training, speaking openly about mental health in the workplace to encourage others to do the same, and making appropriate systemic tweaks – are steps to help anyone living with mental health struggling to provide trust and advice.
Stress from the office doesn’t magically disappear when you log off for the day. Without a healthy work-life balance, it is long-lasting and harmful to health. This is important for several reasons, including the fact that it reduces stress and increases efficiency and success at work. The most efficient strategy for dealing with work-related stress is to become more organized in the workplace.
The good news is that stress is treatable. Actions to eliminate or reduce stressors that protect workers from illness and prevent those who are already ill from losing control of their condition should be supported by facilitating open dialogue about mental health and providing resources to workers in need .
Finally, effective human resource management practices will ensure that a range of physical and psychosocial stressors in the workplace are identified early and practical steps are implemented to ensure that the mental health of workers in India is protected from workplace stress on an ongoing basis.
The author is a mental health activist, Founder and Chair of Mpower, an initiative of the Aditya Birla Education Trust
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