Why is mental health important at Workplace?

Everyone has Mental Health. We talk as if mental health is needed only when people are depressed or sad. But, no mental health is essential to everyone every day. Just like you have physical health, you have mental health also. First, you need to clear in what mental health is to promote it or follow it.

I have seen and worked in companies where so much importance is given to physical health. For example, the company that I worked for has a "Step - count" challenge where the person who has walked the highest steps in a day will be rewarded with gift vouchers. Mostly all the MNCs have Marathons and 10k, 20k running challenge. Also, every company has a sports team. I have been there done that.

When it is good and healthy to give importance to employee's physical health; most companies miss out on the need to give importance to the employee's mental health. There is so little or no activities or programs that are conducted for Mental Wellness. I think now is the high time to implement mental Wellness programs as mandatory to all employees in all the workplaces.

Why is it important?

Gone are the days where you have to strain your physical body and work hard to earn money. Now, in this faced paced algorithmic world, we all squeeze our minds to work hard and earn money. We stress out ourselves to work so hard. We completely ignore the aspect of mental health itself.

Just like you fall sick sometimes when you don’t take care of your physical body, you will become ill if you don’t care for your mental wellness.  However, we tend to attend to our physical bodies if we fall sick. We take in tablets, visit doctors, and make our body fine again to continue to work. But, whenever we are stressed out, depressed, or anxious about the work, most of us push away these symptoms of illness as nothing and work even harder. As a result of this people feel sad, depressed, lazy, and lost.

And also, to talk in a higher perspective, everything is connected. Our minds and body are connected in a profound way. Have you noticed whenever you are sad or depressed you have a loss of appetite, body pain, and sore? Therefore, it is extremely important to take care of your mental health.

Why should companies promote Mental health?

Transparently speaking, all the companies aim for the best in the employees. Companies need employees to use their full potential. There is nothing wrong with it. In fact, that is what people are paid for. To give the best and to work at the highest potential people need to be calm and clear. A chaotic person cannot think straight.

If the employees are depressed and sad and they leave their mental wellness untamed, they might not be able to work hard to the full extent. This reflects in their work. Their work is messy and flawed. This adversely affects the company's reputation. Which in turn will even lead to loss of clients and less revenue. Can you see where this is going?

Employees are the assets of any company. It is the highest priority to take care of the employee's mental health. Companies also should take extra effort and make sure that the employees are not overburdened. Because people are losing it. There is an increase in the number of suicides by Managers and corporate employees due to work pressure. In 2016, A study involving 6000 employees found that 80% of the employees were suffering from depression, panic, and anxiety.

Our career takes 1/3 rd of our lives. If we find our career depressing and stressful this will obviously reflect back in our relationships. We spend almost 75 % of our day at the job. If 75 % of our day is stressful then our whole day will be the same. A toxic work environment will and can ruin an employee's life. Once, the companies start taking care of the employee's mental wellbeing then there will less number depressed employees striving hard to make it to one day. Mental health at the workplace is not an option it is a need that needs to be incorporated mandatorily in every company.