The mental health of society itself begins in the workplace.

It's often said that manners are taught at home, and that too many parents forget to take responsibility for the foundations of discipline and manners, expecting the schools to do it all. I'd like to suggest that the mental health of our society is built not just in childhood, but very much so throughout our lives in the workplace.

Statista.com reported in 2022 that "As of the third quarter of 2022, the majority of the employed individuals (around 8.7 million people) in South Africa worked from?40 to 45 hours per week" Take away time asleep and it could be said that we spend most of our lifetime at work. Work culture, then, is an essential part of our mental health make-up, but it is not always recognised. Why?

Well, for one, leadership is such a critical skill but it is often mistaken for management, even plain old "duties delegation ability". Organisations under pressure can easily forget that their product or service is a reflection of their workforce and their corporate culture. Sweeping poor leadership under the carpet can only survive in an environment where silence is ensured. It must be uprooted and exposed to light or it places everything at risk but who will risk doing so when livelihood is at stake?

It's good old Maslov, at it again, placing mental health in the workplace in the far recesses of the mind because survival comes first (especially when jobs are scarce). Yet, mental health must be safeguarded and organisational leadership must be the custodians of it or suffer the bottom line effects of a lack thereof as people who loose their voice will often make themselves felt in different ways.

A Toxic work environment/culture disregards people's space, time, and basic human needs. Eventually the labour force is run down, and the negative impact of this reverberates throughout the organisation and right down to the client who is not blind, or deaf, and does have a voice even if employees don't.

It would be na?ve of organisational leadership to see people as replaceable who simply do not tow the line to such toxicity, without realising the negative impact it will eventually have on the bottom line. Yet, its happening more often than we think.

I've worked in or with some really toxic environments, and have personally seen how the top-down toxicity destroys lives. Change management and thought management are essential to restore the basic rights to work-life balance and the sense of human dignity to organisations who are "going toxic".

I remember in one instance, a company that would not allow their call center staff to visit the bathroom except during specific times alloted to them. At all, with no exceptions. Mother Nature, however, cannot be dictated to - so their staff turnover was astronomical. The manager felt that since she met the "rule", others should do too - except she set the timetable so it was easier for her as everyone was expected to march to her body clock. I also happened to observe whilst I waited for her to attend to such a call of nature, that she had the discretion to not follow the rule she set, "as long as the staff wasn't looking". Without disclosing the organisation's name I must add that this is not a small organisation. With call centres nationwide totalling over 700 staff, the rule was ludicrous.

In another organisation, an HR executive was finally escorted out after almost 3 decades of destroying people, but not before a work-related suicide and several people being admitted for mental care and many more being put onto anti-depressants.

To me, this lack of basic humanity in organisations is often talked about among staff, but seldom exposed because the lack of human dignity is such that the question is asked "who would believe me". (Not to mention people need their jobs). Draconian rules and toxic management (I don't wish to call it leadership because that's not what leadership is can only be enforced by people with little empathy and the management skills of a goat. But they thrive until senior leadership sees what is happening, because slaves always produce MORE even if they perish at the mill - and that production serves as an endorsement for such toxic individuals to keep digging away at the fibre of the organisation's culture.

In the organisation with the "no loo breaks" policy, management was extremely happy with the wonderful new ideas that kept coming in from that department, and for 3 years the head of all the national teams shone brightly. But Management was not so happy with the massive staff turnover that didn't seem to tally up with the reports from said head, since people sometimes lasted little more than a week in their position. Investigations began and that's where I was brought in to help to bring about the change that came slowly and delicately. All the wonderful ideas amounted to nothing, as people didn't have enough experience to provide adequate service and that soon reflected on client feedback. Sadly many heads fell before the right one was given the boot, people who will probably always carry the mental impact with them.

In another organisation, misogyny ruled, as the predominantly male management openly ridiculed or cat-called women in the organisation during meetings. It was a "joke" that women had to either put up, with or resign from. In that organisation joining a labour organisation was unspoken grounds for being "pegged for dismissal" Asked to try to uncover what was going on, I myself was once told that I would never be able to effect change because (a) I am a woman and (b) I am short. The stuff of playgrounds!

There are three main seeds of a toxicity workplace culture that I have observed. They grow together, and lie behind much of the toxic culture we see hapharzadly buried yet affect clients directly or indirectly:

1. Favouritism, allowing only the favoured to see any recognition.
2. Boundary-less work and a lack of respect for personal time or working hours.
3. The conspiracy of silence created by poor managers who think themselves leaders.

These threekick start the process of rot in any organisation, and they all stem from a lack of proper leadership as well as from willfully blind leadership. The three points feed into one another and enable each one to get bigger, all whilst blinding senior management/ owners of the company to the truth of what's really going on. Legitimated bullying, micromanagement, internal politics, shoddy communication (and more - see image) - swell like a tide. Those managers that they will never fall because above all else the Conspiracy of Silence keeps them in power.

If society is to be re-invigorated with the milk of human kindness, this must begin at the top - of governments, and of organisations. In other words, it begins with Leadership. Why? Because people take home the feelings of resentment, alone-ness, silencing of their Voice, anguish, exhaustion, etc. These emotions need an outlet and since they cannot be let out at work, they are released at home, and in the "wild" (in society -stores, banks, anywhere that any slight irritation triggers the emotions unresolved in the workplace).

When organisations stop putting their people first, their people stop prioritising them, and everyone looses.

So yes, I believe that Organisations have a role to play in the mental health of the society we live in, through the way they treat the people who make up that society.

If, when things aren't working in a child we look to the parenting, perhaps it is time that we look to the absence of leadership in the workplace when things aren't working in society. We must begin to truly consider the impact of the workplace on the makeup of society, because that workplace takes up more hours of our lives than anything else does. ?#mentalhealth ?#toxicworkculture