Building Mental Health@Work from Within
The risks associated with mental health at work and the concern they generate in organisations aren’t a recent situation. However, and with the appearance of COVID19, we get the impression that, in present times, almost everyone is concerned about this issue.
In this context, a great challenge for organisations does not seem to be having access to mental health literacy information, nor the possibility of acquiring programs, or expanded benefits aimed at assessing and promoting the mental health of employees.
What, then, could be the real challenge?
The biggest challenge remains to create internal policies and practices that have a real impact on the prevention of mental health problems and the continuous promotion of the health and well-being in organisations, day in and day out.
Ultimately, the critical question is if the organisation can truly create a real culture of health and build an internal authentic process to manage mental health at work, i.e., which is interconnected with its mission, vision, and values and pays special attention to the role and capacity of the leader in the building blocks of a psychological healthy work community.
But how can we make it happen from within?
We already know that a good work environment and competent leadership are critical for employee’s well-being. So, to adopt a prevention first approach, organisations must ensure that its employees carry out their activities in psychologically healthy environments, having at their disposal everything they need to perform. The foundational elements are: social and supervisor support; the prevention of situations of harassment and discrimination; creating environments where employees feel good and safe; continued monitoring of mental well-being and encouraging its promotion in the everyday life-work integration of all people.
First, management must learn to recognise that work affects people’s mental health, and it can be a source of various mental health problems, but it doesn’t have to be. Considering a classical management approach, without accessing this intangible asset — mental health, we are not managing it, we are only reacting when poor mental health symptoms arise, and normally it’s a bit too late to prevent impact on our collective mental health, and later in our bottom-line. Some steps to consider in a preventive approach are:
(1) Analysing our organisation to mitigate risks related to mental health and wellbeing that are already arising and understand where the greatest risk areas are, and the specific needs to address (e.g., psychosocial risk assessments, mental health pulse survey).
(2) Define a set of goals that must be continually updated according to our organisation’s risks and needs, at all levels when possible;
(3) Understand how we can effectively develop and implement our mental health promotion plan, what resources we will need, what obstacles we anticipate will occur and how we can overcome them;
(4) Finally, train employees and especially managers, carrying out an assessment of the plan being implemented. It’s important to bear in mind that there are always factors that are beyond our control, such as individual factors.
To go further on a good prevention policy, it’s crucial to move into a community-based approach when promoting mental health at work. Following a mental-health supportive supervision model is a great start for this approach. According to this model, supervisory support is one of the critical building blocks of a psychological healthy work environment, and as a leader there are four types of support to consider:
Emotional — In this situation, the leader communicates in an empathetic way and demonstrates that he cares about the feelings of his employees, asking how they feel and encouraging communication where he seeks the opinion of his employees and sharing experiences.
Instrumental — In this type of support, the leader is aware of the employees’ needs and gives them tools that are adequate to the objectives of their work, giving the necessary time to carry out the tasks, as well as the necessary tools to achieve the objectives.
Informational — In this type of supervision, the leader is attentive and provides his employees with the necessary information about all the challenges that are part of their work, namely aspects related to the work-personal life relationship, as well as other programs that prove to be positive for the employees.
Appraisal — In this the leader give the employees some information about how they can take care of themselves and the importance of their health and mental health, giving them some strategies to deal with that.
Finally, when dealing with increased risks for the mental health of employees we must move away from a remediatative approach, based exclusively on individual mental health benefits, but understand that improving mental health at work is a collective effort that happens in each interaction, at every touchpoint of the employee experience in one particular organisation.
Building a future-oriented and resilient mental health promotion policy at work is not then a quick fix, or an employer branding strategy, it’s a long-term commitment to build a distinctive healthy culture of work that considers mental health as important as talent.
References
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