How do we handle mental health in the modern workplace?

Mental Health vs. Physical Well-being

When someone comes to the office and they’ve broken their leg over the weekend, you think “that’s terribly unfortunate, but I know within 3-4 weeks, the cast will be off and there’ll be perhaps crutches for a month and then they’ll be back to normal in terms of their work performance.”

But when we’re thinking about mental health issues, these are very much more difficult than physical health issues to deal with. They are not understood nearly as well as physical health issues and their resolution is much less predictable than physical health issues.

In my recently published book Compassionate Management of Mental Health in the Modern Workplace, I bring the relationship between work life and mental well-being into sharp focus and provide science-based strategies and solutions for managers to improve productivity and wellness.

Another aspect that makes mental health issues much more difficult to deal with is that there is an associated stigma. If there is a broken leg, no one is going to think badly of the individual. But if someone is suffering from a mental health problem because it's not clear whose responsibility that is, because it’s not clear when, if ever, it might be resolved – the people who have mental health issues tend to hide them. All of this can have a detrimental effect on the productivity of that worker. And if the productivity of that worker is being affected, then also the productivity of many other workers who are in the same work unit will also be affected.  

It’s often said at work that if you’re not having fun at work, it’s very difficult for you to be imaginative, innovative and creative. And I believe that creativity and innovation are the most important elements of personal achievement and collective corporate achievement that we can have in the companies that we work in.

Over time, we will see more people living longer lives after they retire from regular, full-time work, and their happiness during that retirement period is will be very much dependent upon the degree to which we can ensure their wellness during the time they are in the workplace.

Advice to Young People

If you find that the corporation that you’re working for is a very exciting place, you’re learning new things every day, and you’re meeting new colleagues who are stimulating and add to your professional network, then it may well be valuable to you to stay working 70-80 hours per week for a year or two at such a company in order to learn all you can before launching the next phase of your career. But I would not stay and work 80 hours a week at a company where you are learning nothing and where the bosses are driving you to do more of the same thing every day and are not thinking about developing your talents or capabilities.

I’m all in favor of work-life balance, but there are times in everybody’s life where the work opportunity takes precedence over other things. There are also times in everybody’s career path where life issues such as the birth of a new child must take precedence over work. Getting that balance right is something only you can do, and everybody is made up differently in terms of their tolerance for workplace, lengthy hours and stress.