Before 2020, we were not so much concerned about mental health in workplaces. However, we are going through a challenging and demanding time due to this pandemic situation. This difficulty has affected many people mentally and has increased the stress level among many of us.
We face many difficulties in our workplace, like workload, racial issues, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, etc., and are already going through a lot of stress. The pandemic situation has added more feathers to it. Now people need to work in totally different conditions with the pressure of getting less paid or the fear of losing jobs. So many negative things are happening around us, and people are becoming more and more stressed. With the increase of mental stress, there is an uptick in the number of digital apps that promise to help improve people’s mental health. But to be honest, they are not much help as the human touch is missing in them.
Considering the situation, employers are now giving more importance to improving the mental health of their employees. They are making strategies to enhance the employees’ mental health and establish a healthy work culture in their organization. Research shows that almost every organization faces mental health issues during their work, and it has been on the rise since 2019.
The employers are now trying to establish a healthy work culture like reducing the number of working days, peer counseling, day-to-day support, allowing frequent breaks, allowing time from work for therapy appointments, etc. The companies are training their managers, leaders, and employees to manage mental health issues by building a connection with their employees. The workers whose families got affected due to this pandemic situation or mothers whose children cannot go to school due to the closure of schools are to be taken care of, especially in this situation. The employees must have peer groups for listening and discussing the mental health issues with each other, which helps reduce their mental stress and improve the work culture.
Employers must make their way of working more sustainable as many workers find it challenging to come back to regular office work after working from home for an extended period. Therefore, they must focus on reducing stress by taking steps like no email after working hours, no meeting days in holidays, fixing internal deadlines for finishing a particular job with much flexibility, etc.
Finally, a simple “How are you?”, “How can I help you?” from the employers and especially from the manager levels, a deeper one-to-one conversation can help solve a lot of mental issues and establish a healthy work culture in the organization.
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