This year’s World Mental Health Day theme is: “making mental health and wellbeing for all a global priority”.
The World Health Organisation estimates that instances of depressive and anxiety disorders rose more than 25% during the first year if the pandemic, and that the mental health impacts of the pandemic could have lasting impacts. This is certainly a sobering thought.
For many, the idea of making mental health a global priority is such a big objective, it may seem overwhelming. We do still have much progress to make.
Making mental health a priority at work
My passion is mental health at work, and particularly looking at preventative action in workplaces to mitigate risks of psychological injury, and create positive and constructive working environments that enhance (rather than detract from) mental health and wellbeing outcomes.
My reflections today are about how we can continue towards achieving this. A recent report by the Black Dog Institute showed we are making some progress, particularly with greater emphasis on mental health in the workplace. But work is becoming more complex, we are worrying more about the future, we feel we have less autonomy, and experiences of symptoms of mental ill-health are increasing.
Prioritising mental health at work can sometimes seem hard. At times we know what needs to be done but are constrained by the operating context for the organisation (budgets, external pressures, labour shortages etc.), or we don’t have the know-how to identify and execute the right interventions. At other times, we simply sacrifice employee mental health and prioritise other things, like profits. It’s a false economy though – evidence clearly shows that business will be more productive and profitable when mental health outcomes are improved. And the costs of mental ill-health at work are high…
The challenge is how we go about working out the right actions to take.
What should business leaders be paying attention to?
Facilitating positive mental health outcomes in organisations is largely about effective workforce management practices, which should be tightly woven into business strategy and operations. Mental health at work shouldn’t be seen as something ‘extra’ we need to do. Having a risk management framework for psychosocial hazards is important, particularly in understanding, identifying, and managing risks. But when we consider upstream, preventative efforts for psychological harm at work, human resource management efforts are critical.
The root causes of mental health at work issues are varied. They are also often misunderstood, leading to the wrong interventions. With issues such as workplace bullying, conflict and discrimination, the organisational causes are at times underestimated. For example, Tuckey and colleagues at the University of South Australia recently published research demonstrating that organisational and management practices relating to areas such as managing performance, work scheduling, and facilitating working relationships are the factors that increase the risk of workplace bullying complaints and compensation claims. Perhaps not quite what many would think…
I believe a big part of the solution lies in ensuring that human resources and organisational development functions in organisations are appropriately resourced and funded, staffed with people that are adequately qualified, and that business leaders see the people function as fundamental to business success. The below graphic is by no means an exhaustive list of factors, but it is one way I recently conceptualised key things that HR/OD (often referred to as the people and culture function in Australian organisations) should be capturing within their people strategy:
The left-hand side factors relate to support for individuals in their roles and those on the right speak to broader, organisation wide interventions. Ensuring a balance between both, capturing operational and strategic aspects of HR, will go a long way to enabling mentally healthy workplaces through reduction of hazard exposure and risks.
Three things businesses could be prioritising to help improve mental health outcomes
I could literally spend hours and hours writing about so many different things that might make a difference to mental health at work. Every organisation is different though, and so if wanting more specific, tailored guidance on what your business should do, I recommend reaching out to suitably qualified professionals (like an Organisational Psychologist) for assistance.
However, I do see key themes across organisations and feel that many businesses could prioritise activity in the following areas:
Management development. I have intentionally chosen to use the word ‘management’ here because a lot of the leadership programs being promoted around Australia today don’t focus on developing basic people management skills. We promote people into management positions without sufficient support around practical people management activities that facilitate job performance, engagement, satisfaction, and mental health and wellbeing. This means that managers are often ill-equipped to appropriately develop employee performance, address conflict, undertake workforce planning, remove stressors, lead through change, communicate effectively, foster inclusivity etc. Thus, psychosocial hazards and associated risk factors are often uncontrolled.
Strategic workforce planning. Many businesses are so busy addressing present challenges and getting by day-to-day that they are failing to effectively forecast workforce needs into the future and remove pain points. Not only are businesses not thinking long term about what they need, but at times decision-makers are barely thinking 6-12 weeks ahead. The result is that workers are not being effectively trained and developed to meet future demands and turnover isn’t being analysed to support proactive recruitment efforts, leaving people under-resourced and over-worked. Further exacerbating this is difficulty also measuring what capacity workers truly have to deliver, resulting in excessive work pressures to meet unrealistic demands. Over-working and/or insufficient opportunities for rest and recovery during the workday (e.g. working through meal breaks) significantly increase risks to mental health.
Organisational change management. There are a lot of psychosocial hazards associated with change in organisations – from lack of stakeholder consultation to additional workloads. Often the work created by change isn’t accounted for because of the above points around workforce planning – we don’t have good metrics around existing workloads and capacity, and we don’t assess how much time needs to be factored into workplans for change activities. Staff that are already busy and pressured to perform then must make time for training, engagement with change communications, and decreased productivity through adjustment to change. Managers who are already juggling numerous responsibilities find themselves in constant stakeholder meetings contributing vital information to change planning and design, compromising their business-as-usual activities. Much greater consideration is required in adequately planning for and implementing change.
Do any of these issues ring true for your own organisation? Have you considered how these factors might be influencing mental health outcomes? Now is the time to reflect on what your organisation could be doing differently to better prioritise mental health in the workplace.
Need support?
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Further reading
Black Dog Institute (2021). Modern work: how changes to the way we work are impacting Australians’ mental health. https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/modern_work.pdf
UniSA (2022). Poor management the biggest risk factor for workplace bullying. https://www.unisa.edu.au/media-centre/Releases/2022/poor-management-the-biggest-risk-factor-for-workplace-bullying/
World Health Organisation (2022). World Mental Health Day 2022. https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-mental-health-day/2022
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