This is How We Take Care of Nakama’s Well-Being and Mental Health

In the spirit of Tokopedia's DNA Focus on Consumer, we as Nakama need to act in the best interest of our consumers (buyer, seller, and Nakama). For the People team, Nakama is our consumer and aims for a workplace culture that enhances the overall well-being of all Nakama, including their mental health.

In line with Tokopedia’s vision of being a Super Ecosystem, the People’s team also supports this vision by building a well-being ecosystem, prioritizing the best approaches, and opening access to Nakama for their well-being privately, independently, and without barriers. The ecosystem consists of 5 well-being aspects; physical wellness, mental wellness, emotional wellness, financial wellness, and purpose wellness. An example of that ecosystem is our Mental Well-being Program which consists of e-Counseling, Support Group, Mindfulness Meditation Class, and Well-being Kit. In addition, Tokopedia also builds an ecosystem to support Nakama’s role as parents, called the NakaParents ecosystem.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced Nakama to Work From Home (WFH), a challenging situation that may become a daily struggle of isolation and instilled a level of fear of uncertainty of the future. Globally, research showed that the WFH situation made it more difficult for employees to create healthy boundaries between work and personal life (Giurge & Bohns, 2020). Other than that, employees feel that they have to work all the time, 55% claiming to have worked for more than their usual office hours (Sukmasari, 2020). This situation certainly has a negative impact on the employee’s psychological well-being, and state of mind resulting in stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, emotional exhaustion, and the feeling of isolation (Verma, 2020).

Based on a recently conducted WFH internal survey, results showed Nakama also faced the same challenges. Therefore, we placed the needs of our Nakama first, and ensured they were given access to adequate support and a safe space to share their concerns and discuss their problems. One of our efforts in supporting the overall well-being of Nakama, including those that experience poor mental health with an e-Counseling platform, where they can connect with professional psychologists to talk further about their issues whilst maintaining their confidentiality.

Building and developing our Nakama well-being ecosystem is a step that we believe can help organizations to create a positive working environment. A good state of well-being also helps foster employee engagement and prevent stress at work. We believe that the best asset in the company is the people within the organization, hence we want to make sure that everything we do is to deliver the best experience for our Nakama.

e-Counseling Program for Nakama

One of our programs is e-Counseling — a platform that connects Nakama with experienced and licensed psychologists to provide mental health support (e.g. how to manage work issues, personal issues, family issues, etc). We also formed a partnership with a mental health company, Ibunda.id, to support Nakama in coping with difficult situations. Nakama can choose whichever interface is best suited for them, including counseling via video call, voice call, or even chat.

Just like one of our 3 DNA, Make It Happen, Make It Better, we are proactively improving things in creative ways. For us, providing Nakama with an e-Counseling platform is a great initiative, but it shouldn’t stop there. We want to make sure that we deliver the best experience when Nakama uses this e-Counseling platform. Presented below are several #MakeItBetter steps that we do:

1. Deliver a seamless e-Counseling registration process

Previously, the registration process was first conducted via Whatsapp. Only after that would Nakama be directed to the Ibunda.id chat where Nakama can select a schedule and choose the e-Counseling category with Ibunda.id’s Customer Excellence team. Afterward, Nakama was asked to fill in the registration form and pay the e-Counseling fees to Ibunda.id. Following a confirmation, Nakama was then required to fill in the assessment before the counseling session began.

Based on this flow, we realized that Nakama’s flexibility in registering for counseling still needed to be improved. Therefore, in March 2021, we launched a new e-Counseling platform. We delivered a more seamless e-counseling registration process, where scheduling and pre-assessment can be done in one go and on one platform (workmi.ibunda.id). Not only that, through the new registration process, we also increased client data security by optimizing the digital system and reducing the number of people involved (we removed the need to contact Ibunda.id Customer Excellence). In addition, now Nakama can directly choose a counseling schedule based on a psychologists’ availability without having to repeatedly confirm to the admin.

Other than that, we made sure that the conversation is fully safe, private, and confidential. Tokopedia will not be able to access the content of Nakama’s conversations as it will be handled by our third-party partner, Ibunda.id.

2. Provide ‘Match Expert’ feature

We understand that getting professional help is not as easy as one might think. Sometimes it takes several trials and errors to find professional support (e.g. psychologist) that matches your preferences. In this new feature, Nakama is given more flexibility in finding their own preferred psychological expert by filling in a short assessment which will propose an expert with the most relevant skill sets and experiences, and that best suits your needs. The assessment also helps to filter the psychologists based on Nakama's current issues, demographic preferences (e.g. gender, age, experience), and choice of mode of interaction.

3. Cashless Payments

Before the new and improved e-Counseling was launched, Nakama were asked to pay the e-Counseling fees first before securing a counseling session. Then, after conducting a counseling session, Nakama can make the reimbursement to Tokopedia. In the new platform, Nakama can create appointments for the counseling using a cashless payment system. Their payment is now automatically covered by Nakama’s outpatient ceiling.

The Impact

Our objective of improving this e-Counseling platform is to ease the process for Nakama to get professional help quickly and independently. After revamping our system, we have received many positive feedbacks from Nakama regarding this new e-Counseling platform, such as:

• “Di masa pandemi seperti sekarang, platform e-Counseling ini sangat bermanfaat. Meski tidak bertatap muka dengan Psikolog langsung, tetap bisa berkonsultasi dengan psikolog secara profesional. Sangat melegakan hati.”
• “Great platform! The registration flow was very easy, the psychologists were very helpful and empathetic to our situations.”
• “I love the match expert part! It makes it easier to find a psychologist who aligns with my personal preferences.”
• “Sangat membantu ketika membutuhkan bantuan profesional, psikolog sangat empati dalam mendengarkan cerita dan memberikan saran yang bisa membantu saya menjadi pribadi yang lebih baik.”

Our product adoption rate has also significantly improved. This performance shows that we have increased our awareness of the importance of mental health and continue to encourage Nakama to seek professional help without hesitation. We hope that through our programs, we can help Nakama to get assistance according to his or her needs, build resilience, and show that their well-being remains our top priority.

Conclusion

In summary, we believe that employees who take care of their overall well-being can create a more resilient and productive workforce who create meaningful contributions to the company and for themselves. Therefore, we will continue to build more leading practices in the area of well-being as well as to continue to innovate and improve our ecosystem to be a workplace that takes employee well-being above and beyond.