World Mental Health Day | It’s okay not to be okay

(Representational image. Photo: Luca Bravo via Unsplash)

Today is World Mental Health Day. Let’s look at critical issues related to mental health at workplace, why mental wellness at workplace is important, why a paradigm of mental health at workplace needs to change, and what leaders can do to improve mental health of their employees.

Plain Lucky

I have lived life with incurable but manageable, life-sapping severe mental ailment, named bipolar disorder, alternately dangling between abyss of depression and splintering flameout of mania with intervening remission periods.

My condition was diagnosed at the age of 38 (though the ailment struck first in childhood), and all attacks of depression and mania have happened at the different institutions I worked at, both in India and abroad.

I was plain lucky to get extraordinary empathy, support, and accommodation from employers, bosses, colleagues, subordinates, and clients. I wonder, where I would have been had I not got this support? It also gets me wondering, why this accommodation cannot be norm at workplaces in India?

Increasing Disease Burden

As per the World Health Organization (WHO)’s ‘World Mental Health Report’ (2022), one billion people lived with mental disorders —one-eighth of the global population. The consensus estimate is that COVID-19 has resulted in a 25 percent spike in depression and anxiety globally.

Mental Illnesses account for the highest share of Global Disease Burden (GDB) and Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).

India’s first National Mental Health Survey (2016) revealed 150 million people suffering from various mental-health-related ailments, but due to entrenched stigma, lack of awareness, and poor availability/accessibility of mental health care services, less than 30 million were seeking treatment.

The 2022 numbers of mentally-Ill people in India are significantly more — and this leads to the question: can India afford not to care for its mentally ill?

Mental Health At Work

The WHO estimates at more than 15 percent of working-age adults suffer from one or the other mental health illnesses. As per the WHO guidelines on mental health at work and a derivative WHO/ILO policy brief, estimated 12 billion workdays are lost annually due to depression and anxiety costing the global economy $1 trillion. If we add the impact of other mental illnesses, the number will increase manifold.

The Mckinsey Report ‘Mental Health at Workplace- A Coming Revolution’ (2020) adds: “Employees need, and increasingly demand, resources to help them cope with mental health problems. If companies make mental health services more accessible and intervene in the workplace in ways that improve well-being, they will simultaneously make investments that will provide real improvements in employee outcomes and consequently in company performance”.

As a norm, employees carry their mental health problems at work often reaching the breaking point, resulting in a burnout. It is time to accept that workplaces amplify wider societal issues that negatively affect one’s mental health.

Mental Health At Work in India

The problem of mental health at work is fast exacerbating in India. A Deloitte India report which came out in September titled ‘Mental Health And Well-Being In The Workplace’, has the shocking revelation that 80 percent of the workforce in India reported mental health issues during the past year, and the poor mental health of employees costs employers $14 billion per year owing to absenteeism, presenteeism, and attrition. Due to prevailing stigma, barely 39 percent of the affected employees took steps to manage their mental illness.

Presenteeism is a problem where ill employees continue to report for work despite not being able to work. The above report finds that 33 percent respondents continued to report at work, despite poor mental health, while 29 percent took time off, and 20 percent resigned to better manage their mental health.

The same report said that ~47 percent professionals consider workplace-related stress as the biggest factor affecting their mental health, followed by financial constraints, and COVID-19-related challenges.

These statistics do not bode well for the nation.

A recent Mckinsey study found that globally there is a disconnect between employers and employees when it comes to workplace mental health, on aspects of workplace stigma, access to treatment, and support from the employer. This gap forces many employees to not talk about their mental health/well-being lest they lose their job.

Quite clearly now is time for CEOs in India to play a proactive role in de-stigmatising mental health challenges in their organisations, and take corrective measure to create a culture that promotes employees mental well-being.

What Employers Can Do

Many factors influence an employee’s mental health. These include poor communication and management practices, limited participation in decision-making, long or inflexible working hours, and lack of team cohesion. Bullying and psychological harassment are also well-known causes of work-related stress, and related mental health problems.

I have spent disproportionately long time researching, and reporting on aspects of mental illness, including mental health at work and organisational responses. As companies are shaped by their leaders, the top leadership must take the responsibility to ensure employees feel supported and understood, not despite but because of their vulnerability to mental health conditions. Key is to create a culture where employees feel free to open up and speak.

CEOs need not do it for altruistic reason — a very powerful study reveals that a $1 investment in employees’ mental health throws forward $4 benefits to the organisation.

Nine Steps For A Better Workplace

Clearly corporate India has to wake up — the problem has assumed humungous proportion. Here are nine steps corporate leaders can take:

One, awareness is key to arriving at a solution. Mental health in the workplace is not a new problem, has now reached an inflexion point. It is time to address the elephant in the room.

Two, lead by example. Authenticity of the leaders sets the organisational tone. One way is for CEOs to be open about their own struggles, and challenges.

Three, create a culture that matters, and where employees can open and share instead of hiding their mental illness.

Four, create policies and crisis support, India’s best practices Mental Health Care Act, (MCHA) 2017 mandates parity of treatment between physical and mental illness. It is time every organisation have a mental health policy, and comprehensive support.

Five, mindsets need to change, and for this the creation of an organisation-wide zero tolerance policy against insensitive or discriminatory behaviour towards employees with mental health conditions is a big step in the right direction.

Six, consider expenditure on employee mental health as an investment.

Seven, communication holds the key. Mental health issues have long been stigmatised in India. Barriers in communication need to be removed.

Eight, the rate of investment of organisations that act proactively is overwhelmingly positive. Surveys by McKinsey in the US show that including depression management in primary care reduced missed workdays by 30 percent, and employers offering more support were twice as likely to report a greater than 50 percent return-to-work rate after mental-health-related disability leave.

Finally, just be receptive and understanding, and become a champion of mental health—and thereby jumpstart the creation of organisation-wide culture of care, keep in mind it is the leadership which sets the culture.