Mental Health in The Workplace
Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well, work well, and contribute to their community(WHO).
It is important to note that mental health problems can affect anyone regardless of their age, sex, and position. Work-related stress arises when work demands and work environment affect employees’ capability to cope and deliver work expectations; The effect of work-related stress can be worsened if an employee is facing some hardship in their personal life. Either way, whether stress is work-related or arises from other places, it will hurt employees’ quality of work. Besides affecting the mental state of an individual, mental health issues will also affect physical health leading to absenteeism from work or poor performance in general.
Below are some of the areas that may lead to stress at work, and strategies that could be used to mitigate:
- Organizational Culture: A bad culture that does not promote cohesion or team spirit/Healthy competition at work can lead to strained relationships leading to psychological strain among team members. Such a culture can also enable bad practices such as unsupportive supervision, poor relationships with colleagues, bullying, and harassment. This can be averted by ensuring an effective induction program, open communication, and team-building activities
- Workload: This can either be Excessive workload or Insufficient work. Employees who have too much workload can suffer burnout or have challenges with work-life balance. Insufficient work can result in a lack of satisfaction which can contribute to mental strain. Ensuring that employees have sufficient and meaningful work is the remedy for this challenge.
- Clarity of roles and structures: Lack of clarity about workplace objectives and structure is a major source of stress for employees and management. The lack of clarity negatively affects performance therefore leading to conflict between management and staff. Having clear organizational goals and aligning the deliverables for each role towards achieving the objectives is the only way to drive performance.
- Employee skill gaps: This can result in stress due to non-performance. Such gaps occur when unqualified personnel are assigned to handle assignments that they are not qualified to undertake. To avoid this, organizations must ensure clarity of deliverables for each role and that minimum qualifications are clearly outlined. Such clarity covers the basic requirements when recruiting new employees and when promoting staff.
- Tools of work and resources: When an organization does not provide adequate resources for employees to be able to carry out their duties effectively, the respective employees ‘performance will be affected negatively. This leads to frustration and dissatisfaction with their jobs.
- Physical Working environment: This may include noise, pollution, lighting, office location, etc. Poor working environment leads to stress among employees. It is therefore important
Organizations must have policies for the successful implementation of the above strategies. Regular feedback from staff is crucial for the effectiveness of mental health initiatives within an organization.
