"Employee mental health is our priority”
We keep hearing corporate organizations “talk” about this all the time.
Solution? Mental healthcare breaks, and access to therapy. But, what about system accommodations?
How does the system accommodate for someone who has chronic anxiety or depression or any other mental health challenge? What kind of work arrangements (apart from work from home) are available to them? How are the individual’s colleagues and managers supposed to operate? How would the work appraisal differ? How would management style adapt? How tight the work deadlines are going to be?
Whether companies accept it or not, work as a system plays a huge role in triggering mental health issues. We can’t just wash our hands off the situation by giving mental health breaks and asking the individual to go to therapy and "handle” it!
Mental Health care as a process is demanding, world-altering and very isolating for the individual. It’s the time when they need help from the systems they are part of - to help them redefine and rearrange their lives.
How does your organization reduce the systemic stress for individuals going through mental health challenges?