Windmills Of The Mind: Understanding Mental Health Challenges At Workplace
The depredations of the covid pandemic have affected us deeply, and nowhere are its ill effects more troubling and damaging than at the workplace.
According to the ILO, Geneva, mental health problems at work cost the global economy up to USD 1 trillion each year in lost productivity. In India, the harm is equally enormous, or even more alarming, given the nature of our economy and the aspirational goals of the working citizenry. A Deloitte report released this month suggests that 80 per cent of the Indian workforce reported mental health issues during the past year, a situation that has set organisations back by Rs 1.1 lakh crore.
Mental well-being is key to better productivity and impacts both employee output and organisations’ bottom lines as well. There is no denying the fact that recent years have caused a swathe of psychosocial shifts in the lives of workers and have consequently imposed a huge set of challenges on companies to manage these wholesomely.
For organisations grappling with mental challenges in their offices and plants, dealing with absenteeism and presenteeism both are important. While the former is a direct evidentiary outcome, low productivity due to mental ill-health, while being present at work, or presenteeism, is equally harmful and can give rise to decreased output in a significant manner. Enough available evidence indicates that employee effectiveness resonates with their mental health.
Anxiety, depression, and trauma, all can be the many serious effects of mental health deterioration. Work is a firm, effective way through which one strives towards self-fulfilment, but it should not come at too great a cost. Here, therefore, it may be instructive to recognise the key causes of workplace stress. This is the real first step to managing it both manifestly and pre-emptively.
A leading cause of mental health imbalance at the workplace is burnout or exhaustion due to overwork which causes a reduced marginal increment utility of employees and transfers the loss thus incurred to the overall corporate turnover as well. Inadequate or poor / non-commensurate remuneration is a closely interlinked factor which puts workers under constant, unrelenting pressure and causes morale to wither. Even if outwardly, organisations are able to be on top of these two key issues, mental health issues remain taboo as a subject and these pent-up emotions can froth out unpredictably and destructively.
In addition to these, mental health impairments at the workplace are often seen in cases where the environment is toxic due to, inter alia, there being an element of personal risk involved, or in the presence of bullying or ‘mobbing’, low team involvement, unclear or capricious KRAs, poor inter-staff communication network, or an inadequate support group, both within and outside work.
Creating a workplace environment where the mental well-being of each employee is taken care of is the hallmark of a sensitive organisation. One uncomplicated way of addressing and managing workplace mental challenges is through dialogue, both corporate and social.
Leaders must try and create a sensitive environment, streamlining the entire body corporate to recognise and address stress-related issues proactively. Employers would well to look at a work culture which is cross-functional and one which minimised and understands all dimensions of risk. These risks can be occupational or emotional and can be managed integratively. This means that organisations should have an active commitment to understanding not only the minds and attitudes of their employees but also the hearts and extended life-swells of each worker. Workplaces that promote mental health and support people are more likely to reduce absenteeism, increase output effectiveness and eventually and surely benefit from the resultant economic gains.
