Prosenjit Nath
5 min readMar 31, 2022

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The Significance of Employee Mental Health

Improve Mental Wellbeing at Work

It’s ironic that stigma is tied to one of the most frequent problems. Frequently, discussions on mental health begin with the assumption that it is a bad thing. Before we go into the details of this topic, let’s clear the air on what mental health is.

Mental health, as outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO), is “a state of well-being within which the individual realizes his or her own skills, will address the conventional stresses of life, will work fruitfully and productively, and is ready to create a contribution to his or her community”. Our mental state includes our emotional, psychological, and social welfare and affects how we predict, feel, and act. It mustn’t be interchanged with mental disease and doesn’t denote a signal of weakness. Circumstances, originating from personal family reasons, stress at a geographical point, monetary pressures, social group demands, etc., will impact any person’s mental equilibrium. Recently, the constant desire to be likable and accepted on social media platforms has become one such trigger of mental state problems. With dynamic lifestyles and a large portion of society living severally, generally, a lack of company creates that emotional imbalance where one doesn’t realize anyone to share their thoughts and insecurities with. In the 1700s, being mentally unhealthy was thought to have a stigma, and folks thought patients were religiously chastised. Quick forward to 2019–2021: Folks have begun to grasp the prevalence of mental state challenges in their personal and skilled lives. Within the company world, the problems of mental state and its deterioration have garnered the attention of staff and employers. In 2020, mental health became a true business imperative, and the need to be compelled to address an equivalent increased, much like diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.According to Oracle’s 2020 AI@Work Study, eighty-four Indians have reportedly experienced additional stress and/or anxiety at work than any year before. Eighty-five percent say mental state problems at work negatively have an effect on their home or personal life. Intriguingly, ninety-two percent of those polled in Asian countries were more relaxed about discussing their mental problems with a mechanism than their manager!These findings replicate the lack of policy support for mental health at a geographical level, as well as the lack of understanding of the subject.With millions of people suffering from mental illnesses today, it is no longer a stigma, and people have begun to accept and support this condition empathetically.Mental health isn’t essentially a phrase having a negative connotation; it will be varied. A smart mental state will improve the quality of life, whereas a poor mental state will worsen it. Additionally, recently, with the COVID-19 pandemic hitting most families and professionals in one way or the opposite, the notice has grown manifold. What can be seen or is physical in nature is comparatively easier to repair. What can’t be seen is the most difficult to handle. If a private is mentally healthy, s/he spreads cheer around them and are energized, productive at work and happy in life. If a private isn’t mentally healthy, there’s an absence of focus, as attention gets distracted, and productivity takes an immediate hit. Not only that, but according to a study published in the journal Science, Quarterly, new hires diagnosed with anxiety, depression, or high levels of stress are likely to transmit these feelings to their new coworkers, affecting morale and a sense of well-being throughout the organization.Let us conjointly verify some statistics to visualize the economic impact of an equivalent. As per NCBI, information from completely different countries around the world indicates that mental state issues are a cause for a variety of staff giving up labor. Even in many developed economies, such as the Netherlands, around 58% of work-related disabilities are related to mental health.In the UK, it’s calculable that around 30–40% of the illness absences are due to some type of mental disease (15.4 million workdays annually). Mental state issues have sway on employers and businesses directly through accrued absence, a negative impact on productivity and profits, and a rise in prices when addressing such problems. The calculable cost for the global economy as a result of depression and anxiety is the US $1 Trillion per year. Health Organization estimates that Asian countries can suffer economic losses amounting to a staggering one trillion greenbacks from mental state conditions between 2012 and 2030. Additionally, they impact worker morale adversely. Besides the economic impact, the people are wedged by growing tension in their operating relations with supervisors, and their learning and career growth are scrubby. So, what will organizations and staff do to handle the same? In a survey conducted by Gi Cluster, only fourteen percent of the employers surveyed were found to possess policies and mechanisms receptive to mental eudaimonia. For instance, fifty-four percent of the respondents haven’t placed formal policies and mechanisms in situ for mental health, and this is often a huge space for improvement for corporates. The mental health of staff has to be increased not simply through bound day-offs and content sessions but through a sustained and well-thought-out strategy that’s conjointly on an organization’s key agenda. Employers have to be more compelled to be additional verify than ever, either through policies that empower folks to require days off or through engagement programs wherever health care professionals will give support. Content, medication, or any other type of physical or mental well-being program can also help.With hybrid work arrangements in today’s times, fellow feelings from leadership, higher work hours, formal mental state policies, and permitting staff to strike a work-life balance can facilitate employers’ cultivating healthy men. Higher processes in situ for casual connections to Yoga, meditation, content, and so on, facilitate fostering a psychologically safe work setting.I vividly bear in mind, however, that one of our staff lost her father to COVID-19 and was torn. She had loads to juggle, between everyone’s safety, taking care of her mother, and dealing facet by facet. The firm provided her with content support, which helped her mother cope better. This helped our worker with managing her mental welfare and meant that we couldn’t be additional mitigated. Organizations that are willing to be mindful of their people and their mental well-being desires are those World Health Organizations that will cultivate motivated and grateful employees.These acutely aware and accountable corporations can eventually move towards growth on the muse of a robust culture that keeps all stakeholders along in times of need.

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Prosenjit Nath

Prosenjit is an IT engineer who is also passionate about writing. His focus areas include personal development, productivity, politics, and spirituality.