No matter how much we try to talk about the importance of mental health, it is still a highly ignored issue in our society, especially at workplaces. This article highlights five (5) crucial reasons behind this.
Mental health issues in the workplace:
Workplaces are thought of as the space where commercial activities take place only by the people who are expert at doing it. This is a belief that most people hold. The employees are supposed to work only as long as they are in the office.
But the fact is, no employee is without baggage of emotions. People come to workplaces after going through a lot of issues like
- Prolonged sickness
- Family crisis
- Personal disappointments
- Inadequate income &
- Monotony, etc.
As humans, when we face such issues and they go unaddressed, the performance level goes down as we fail to concentrate on work due to the discomfort in the psyche. Nobody can deny these issues. The surprising fact is, although everyone is more or less facing this, still there is an absence of a strong culture to look after mental health conditions at most of the workplaces. The most observed reasons are listed here:
Five common reasons for ignoring mental health in the workplace:
- Sufferer like to be silent
When somebody goes through a certain problem or inner pain, it becomes tough to find someone who would —
- Listen carefully
- Respond mindfully
- Keep it private
Most of the people just love to mock it, which eventually hurts the person who suffers the problem. Very few people are there who are sensitive about this issue.
- Observers gossip but don’t help
This is a common tendency in mass people to talk about other people & their conditions. Most of the cases, there is gossip that transcends departments & different versions are made up when people get to know about someone facing a mental trauma.
People will make fun & gossip but won’t help. Because of this mentality, mental health issues are never taken seriously in workplaces.
But it must be noted that many organizations today have designated psycho-counselors to address this issue. But still people are hesitant to consult, as they feel it will defame them if other people come to know about this.
- Inability to view this as an important issue
At workplaces, the mental health issue is somehow viewed as a less significant issue. The existing culture holds the belief that any mental trauma or sadness at the workplace is a trivial issue. The common scenarios go like:
- A happy employee suddenly becoming sad is nobody’s concern!
- An employee not responding to every instruction is considered unproductive.
- Seniors do not pay attention to junior employees’ mental problems.
- Seen as weakness of an employee
Unfortunately, when an employee goes through a mental issue – which can be anything among the following examples:
- Getting rejected from a loan application
- Dealing with patient at home
- A heartbreak with someone special
- Prolonged disease
- Financial struggle
- Detachment with family life, etc.
This is shown as a weak point of character of that sufferer! The underlying concept is like, at office nobody is supposed to feel any discomfort regarding any issues apart from work. This goes as an implied practice.
- Lack of Training for Managers
Our senior level managers are yet to receive training to view these mental health issues with sensitivity and gravity. They are the believers of the thought that – “we have also had our issues but never made this a topic in the workplace. A workplace is not the place to entertain someone’s mental health!”
Many of the managers or departmental heads hold this belief which transcends to the juniors gradually in organizations. Fortunately, not all managers think this way. Some employers do treat it with importance and take measures.
Suggestions
Organizations may arrange the following measures to address this issue:
- Appointing a psycho counselor as a full time position (which is already in practice in a few industries)
- Arranging training sessions to showcase how to respond to mental health issues at the workplace.
- Creating a culture of sharing mental health issues without any apprehension.
- Celebrating Mental Health Awareness Day each year to instill its importance, as unaddressed problems hamper productivity.
Almost all of us experience mental health issues in our daily life. This is never an issue to feel embarrassed to talk or share. Like physical health, mental health must also be taken care of.
Author:
Abu Md. Abdullah
Associate Professor
Faculty of Business Administration
Eastern University
abdullah@easternuni.edu.bd
