The missing link to Singapore’s workplace mental health conundrum

Common Ground, a civic centre that facilitates partnerships and conversations between the people, public and private sectors to address pressing societal concerns in Singapore, teamed up with Talk Your Heart Out, a Singapore-based online counselling platform for people seeking to improve their mental health & wellbeing, to discuss the missing link to Singapore’s workplace mental health challenge on 15th July from 8–9.30pm.

Photo courtesy of Common Ground, Singapore : https://www.facebook.com/ourcommongroundsg/posts/31532950249001

Chirag Agarwal, co-founder of Talk Your Heart Out (TYHO), shared his mission to bring affordable, safe and accessible mental health services to Singapore by contrasting his lived experience in Australia with Singapore.

Chirag Agarwal, co-founder of TYHO, was an invited speaker at Common Ground’s virtual event. Photo courtesy of Common Ground, Singapore: https://ourcommonground.com.sg

Findings from TYHO’s survey with OPPi’s AI methodology. Photo courtesy of the organizer of the event, Common Ground, Singapore: https://ourcommonground.com.sg

Chirag shared some findings from TYHO’s collaboration with OPPi, which sought to crowdsource Singaporean sentiments on the gaps in Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) ecosystem.

These were the top 3 statements with Highest Agreement from the emergent survey from 30 August 2020 to 6 December 2020 with 211 participants voting on 15 sentiments/opinions/statements.

Top 3 statements with Highest Agreement. Photo courtesy of Common Ground, Singapore: https://ourcommonground.com.sg

Issue Map or So-What Chart on the Employee Assistance Programme in Singapore. Click on the bubbles to learn more about the issue. Chart Courtesy of www.oppi.live

These were the top 3 most divisive statements in the conversations between Singaporeans.

Top 3 Divisive Statements. Photo courtesy of Common Ground, Singapore: https://ourcommonground.com.sg

2 themes emerged from the study:

a. Prevailing stigma around mental health in the workplace

b. Struggles over opening up or asking for help in the workplace

Stigma around Mental Health. Photo courtesy of Common Ground, Singapore: https://ourcommonground.com.sg

Difficulties in opening up. Photo courtesy of Common Ground, Singapore: https://ourcommonground.com.sg

It seemed strange that people were more inclined to render assistance to a fellow colleague who is going through a mental health challenge than to seek assistance for themselves. Singaporeans were harsher and more demanding on themselves than the demands they placed on others, it seemed.

The participants were then invited to 3 breakout room discussions to discuss the themes that emerged from the study.

Breakout room discussion topics. Photo courtesy of Common Ground, Singapore: https://ourcommonground.com.sg

I was touched by the discussion in room 3. Here are 7 wonderful ideas and insights on how to normalize help-seeking and opening up in the workplace that I learnt from our group members:

For society, community, organizations, families and teams

1. Develop the language to understand and communicate the concept of boundaries. Saying “No” is very difficult in an Asian culture where the prevailing or dominant norms are compliance and not appearing incompetent, disloyal or weak. Healthy expressions of anger when boundaries are crossed should not be silenced, glossed over, frowned upon or even punished.
2. Nurture a psychologically safe culture that helps employees to be aware of and to “clumsily” raise concerns on microaggressions in the workplace. Microaggressions, which are more covert and invisible in nature, e.g. ghosting or gaslighting, are difficult to spot but they rule most relationships and interactions in organizations. Due to the high-stakes nature of such conversations, they could ruin relationships or end careers in an instant. Instead of confronting an aggressor, we prefer to swallow and bury our emotions deep inside. In Singapore and in Asia, we have a capability or capacity gap in conflict resolution and mediation skills. We need to build this capability in every organization or family unit. For a start, all of us can keep a watch for non-verbal cues of isolation, silence which could be signs of abuse or harassment or mask unmet social or emotional needs.
3. Most employees fear being vulnerable with their mental health challenges because they do not want to appear weak or be perceived as adding on to existing burden on others. In Asia, community, society or others often come above or before self. We could strike a healthier balance between me and we where there is a more wholesome, interdependent and synergistic “mwe”.
4. When transforming our organizational cultures into safer, healthier and wholesome spaces for difficult conversations, cognitive biases such as loss aversion and the ensuing cognitive dissonance between the old and the new often hold us back from nurturing any meaningful change. We could be mindful of the cognitive dissonance and biases. It is thus important to shine the spot light on the countervailing pressures from the legacies of the old ideologies, cultures and structures, for example KPIs, deadlines and OKRs. Also, parental and other social influences outside the realm of the organization hold us back from creating any meaningful change within the organization.

For leaders

1. Leaders play a crucial role in modelling vulnerability. In our culture, it is extremely rare to find a leader who says “I am sorry”, “I need help” or “I don’t know”. Understandably, there is a risk in doing so because they might lose the respect or the “pedestal” or “aura” of infallibility that they might have taken many years and effort to build. Leaders in Asia grow up learning not to “lose face” or to back down. When our leaders aren’t modelling vulnerability, the very least we can do is to model it to our peers and to our subordinates.
2. The strong paternalistic model of leadership in Singapore could be re-examined. The lone leader leading from the top and in front, who knows it all, is a myth. We could expand that model to include other types of leadership in all spheres of and levels of an organization. Peership, healership and allyship are some additional models. When peers and subordinates affirm and watch out for one another, it usually sends a strong signal to the rest of the organization, especially new employees. For example, if someone is being ghosted, speak out on behalf of that person. Don’t feign ignorance and gloss over it with a veneer of artificial harmony. Doing so sweeps such crucial conversations under the carpet thus perpetuating a vicious cycle of fear and silence which inhibits the full potential of teams from blossoming. It would mean the world to people who are silently being marginalized in an organization when their fellow peers have their back.
3. Leaders are constantly giving out vibes and signals in setting the tone and the culture of an organization. Do not minimize the struggles of your subordinates by saying that you have it worse if you are a leader.

Here is how you can get in touch with the upcoming series of virtual events organized by Common Ground Singapore:

https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/why-like-that-season-1-tickets-161574851731

https://www.instagram.com/ourcommongroundsg/

Here is how you can get in touch with more wisdom bites and a curated list of counsellors and mental health professionals on Talk Your Heart Out’s platform:

https://www.instagram.com/tyho.sg/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/tyho.sg/

About OPPI

OPPi provides you with a new way to feel the pulse of the people. By crowdsourcing opinions and ideas, OPPi aims to find common ground where people seem to be divided. We locate shared values, not what divides us.