Shahid Akhter, editor, ETHealthworld, spoke to Parveen Sheikh, Vice President, Operations, Mpower (an initiative by Aditya Birla Education Trust), to figure out the challenges associated with mental health at the workplace and how it affects productivity.
Mental Health at Workplace: Trends
Mental health, as defined by the National Mental Health Policy, is a state of wellbeing where an individual can understand their abilities, do their work productively, manage the normal stresses of life, and also make a commitment to society and work towards society and the community. Now, when this state of wellbeing is not present, that’s when we say that a person is not in good mental health. When a person with this mental health goes to work, if they are not feeling a sense of wellbeing, that affects their productivity, the way they are functioning, and what is coming out of their jobs. Globally, there are very solid workplace policies and education policies on mental health. In India, we do have the Mental Health Care Act. It really needs work in terms of policies at the workplace and policies at the educational setup.
Mental Health at Workplace: Impacting productivity
While we have understood and are aware of mental health and its effects and impact, we really need to work on interventions to prevent mental health from becoming a mental illness. Mental health is not mental illness. But when mental health is not taken care of, it will affect a person’s productivity. A study by the WHO said that India would lose $1.03 trillion between 2012 and 2030 because of mental health issues. Can you imagine the effect it will have on the GDP? India, being a young country, has a majority of youth. The maximum working population is between 25 and 40. If this population suffers from mental health problems and we offer no prevention, obviously productivity, the GDP, and everything else are going to get affected. And that’s the biggest flaw, the biggest result of not taking care of mental health at the workplace, and one needs to focus on that. Currently, we have a mental healthcare act, which has certain guidelines for mental healthcare institutions and defines the rights of mental health patients. But we do need standard policies from the government for corporations. However, having said that, there is no standard policy. I’m very happy to say that there are many corporations that understand the need for mental health intervention in their organisation, and they have various things that they do.Mental Health at Workplace: Need for intervention
The most common thing people do for mental health is spread awareness. Mental health is stigmatized. If it’s overlooked. Anything that is done right now, but is commonly done by some corporations, is where they provide awareness about mental health. Many corporations also deploy a counselor or psychologist at the workplace so that people can go and get help from them. In India, generally, it’s either awareness webinars and seminars or providing a psychologist at the workplace who can help the employees at the workplace. That’s what’s really happening in the country right now.Mpower
Mpower a Mental Health Initiative under the Aditya Birla Education Trust’s vision is a stigma-free world where individuals with mental health concerns live with respect and dignity and lead productive lives. To achieve this, we have various offerings. is to destigmatize mental health. We conduct a lot of awareness workshops and events to spread mental health knowledge so people can understand and not stigmatise it. Secondly, we go to schools and colleges, and we do a lot of outreach programmes so that people in schools, colleges, communities, and corporations know about mental health. Third, we train professionals on mental health. There are not many professionals in India. We need people to know and get trained in mental health so we can have many people helping other people. We have a 24-hour helpline and chat service. Lastly, we provide multidisciplinary clinical services where we have centres that encompass psychiatrists, psychologists, allied therapists, and all these people together. When you go to the centre, they screen an individual, and they provide them with the right intervention based on their condition. In fact, we also have an empowerment centre in Delhi, and our whole aim is to give the right intervention and the right clinical services to people with mental health concerns.
Mpower Mental Health & Wellness Quotient at Workplace 2023 Survey
Mpower commissioned a mental health at the workplace survey through IPSOS, which is a research organization. The objective of this survey was to find out how many people at the workplace, at the corporate workplace, are at risk for mental health. That’s one. Second, for those people who are at risk, what are the issues they are facing, what do they think are causing those issues, and what is their awareness of mental health? We found out about these studies, which I’m going to share further. We went to eight cities—Delhi was one of them—and 10 sectors across FMCG, e-commerce, hospitality, education, and so on. That’s how the survey found out statistics regarding every city, how the corporate world works, how corporate employees between the ages of 30 and 60 in senior positions perceive mental health, what causes issues with them, and what they think about mental health and wellness. The Mpower mental health and workplace survey has some very interesting findings.
Mpower Mental Health & Wellness Quotient at Workplace 2023 Survey Findings
Some of the findings are: Firstly, to find out, 48% of the respondents who were a part of our subjects are at risk for mental health. Can you imagine one out of two people in the workplace being at risk for a mental health issue? Anxiety and depression, as always, are some of the highest issues that people face in mental health. When you come to Delhi, almost 48% of the corporate population feels that they are at risk of mental health problems. 93% of the mental health issues in the field are caused by stress at the workplace. 85 percent is caused by stress at work. That’s what they are feeling. In the daily population, 83% of young parents who are in the corporate world feel that parental responsibility and juggling work-life balance are causing a lot of mental health issues for them.
73% feel a lack of motivation is causing mental health issues in them. That, again, reflects the productivity of that individual. These are very scary findings. 73%, again, feel that mental health issues and workplace life balance are causing them to have sexual health issues. Because they are so involved in their work, they’re not able to spend time in their personal lives. That’s again an alarming statistic. And 51% of Delhi’s workplace comes from outside. They feel alienated; they feel they don’t fit into the culture. That again causes mental health issues. These are some of the statistics that we found in a Delhi survey. One more interesting and unique thing about Delhi is that 91% of people in Delhi feel that working from home or remotely causes stress. Because people nowadays prefer to work from home, this statistic says a lot about the culture of working from home and how people, when they’re working from home, feel alienated and feel that they’re not progressing. The good part is that 97% of the respondents said that they understand the importance of mental health, and that’s great because they are already aware that mental health is important for them, and this is of greater importance for their mental health and their productivity. The first battle for awareness is done. Now what we need to do is take actions to improve mental health at the workplace and mental health overall.
