The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime, a third of their lives.
What this means is that your job, no matter what it is, can make a huge impact on your quality of life.
A healthy quality of life translates to increased productivity, and vice versa.
Research from the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that depression and anxiety cost the global economy approximately US$1 trillion each year in lost productivity.
As awareness of mental health grows globally, organizations are increasingly recognizing that supporting employees’ psychological well-being is not just beneficial but essential to organizational growth.
So what does mental health mean in the workplace context?
“Mental health at the workplace is about how we feel, how we think, and how we act while we perform our roles. It is about the confidence that we have to do what we do every day, regardless of what is going on around us, and how the organization we are in supports our mental health,” said Sharon Waga, Health and Well Being lead at Safaricom.
Nkirote Mworia Njiru, Group Head of Human Capital at Old Mutual conquers with Sharon, adding that, “Many people think that mental health is really about the illness and treatment of an illness, but actually, mental health at work is about whether people are able to bring their full selves to work.”
While many organizations are expressing commitment to workforce mental health, the matter is still hush-hush in some organizations, with many employees still facing the fear of stigmatization.
“The conversation is becoming real, and we are beginning to talk more about mental health at the workplace. Why? Because we are actually seeing situations arising at the workplace that have to be addressed. But are we doing enough? Is it being discussed enough? No Why? Because there’s still a lot of stigma around mental health,” said Sharon.
To support employees and make them feel safe to share their struggles, companies are actively creating spaces that are mental health friendly and empowering leaders to support their direct reports.
“About a year ago, we were able to launch the Safaricom mental health policy. So what that does is it governs everything that we do in our mental health space. Recently, we have also launched a program that we are calling Tustawi pamoja. What Tustawi pamoja is seeking to do is to remove mental health from being a discussion out there to being our daily living,” said Sharon.
“We’ve trained our managers on issues of mental health so that they can accommodate people who are struggling with this mental health issues at workplace,” said Dr. Yusuf Saleh, HR officer, Business Registration Service.
With the evolving nature of the work place, mental health is going to be a strategic pillar of success going forward.
“I don’t think there will be an organization that will be able to be successful, if it will not have taken into consideration mental health, because we are first and foremost human beings, and then employees,” said Sharon.
Watch the video below to see why prioritizing mental health at the workplace is important.
