Mental health at the workspace

A healthy work environment isn't just about good leadership. It consists of various factors including an open and transparent work culture. A culture which allows you to be just what you truly are. Where you express yourself without any fear or judgement or fear of your performance or growth being hampered. It's then when an individual can work with equal transparency and this creates a two way trust that becomes the x-factor.

Off late, organisations have been talking about inclusion - which has been focusing on inclusion or races, gender and LGBTQ community. Now there's a pressing need of inclusion also in the space of mental health. 30% of the world's adult working population have mental health issues and that's a HUGE number. But how many organisations can truly say that it's ABSOLUTELY safe for people to share without any repercussions from managers, peers, clients, etc?

Mental health is as real as any other health issue. People battle mental illness on a daily basis. And sometimes, this may be a reason why people don't hire certain employees.

Mental health isn't a cause to discriminate but a reason to encourage and empower the talent within them. Our workspace is like a Rubik's cube - a mix of a 100 different permutations and combinations to get the balance right. And the result is marvelous. I'm proud to have two amazing girls - Basudhara Choudari and Pallavi Varma on our team. They have mental health issues but it didn't even occur to us as a factor when we were hiring them. But we're talking about it today because we feel, when we talk to people, there's a bias which exists. And we want to uproot this bias. They're beautiful, funny, smart and talented. They bring to the workspace so much colour and life.

Our workspace is like a Rubik's cube - a mix of a 100 different permutations and combinations to get the balance right. And the result is marvelous.

We don't shy away from the tough talks. We take them head on; not just in the workspace but also on our social media platforms. And so we did. We had an InstaLive session last month - the Mental Health awareness month. The blog I'm sharing below is written by these two amazing girls. 

On a Friday evening at the end of June, a warm night for Unhotelier Basudhara Choudhuri, and a cool, windy climate for Unhotelier Pallavi Varma, the two employees of The Unhotel Company and Studio4 sat down to have an important conversation. A conversation about mental health — and specifically — mental health in the workplace.

Chatty as usual, the duo took over the Unhotel Instagram page with a Live discussion — a blend of anecdotal, factual, and hopeful. The week leading up to this Live, they even did a series of polls to see how their viewers and audiences — coworkers, clients, and friends — felt about the issue.

Here are some of the results

It is important to note, before we dive into what they had to say, that they did this on a company platform — an intentional move on their part, and the part of the Cinnamon Marketing family. Why is that? Because this was more than just a quick conversation between friends and colleagues.

This was an attempt to bring to light the realities of working when you have a mental illness, the real, lived experience of how work and mental health affect each other, and what can be done to move the conversation forward.

Q. How much impact does mental health have on an average working day?

BC: It is obviously very important. We tend to not credit our mental health for our productivity on good days. On the other hand, when work is negatively affected, we realise the role that mental health plays on our productivity as well. We might not even realise when a frequent short breaks in the day gradually turn into very unproductive and inefficient work days and unreasonable long hours.

PV: I would say it plays a very important role. Both are symbiotic — my mental health affects my work, and my workload affects my quality. A workplace is not like school, where you can take breaks for weeks and run a sprint at the end. It’s an everyday deliverable and accountability process which can make it difficult on the mind. Moreover, some of the signs of mental distress — over-working, insomnia, pushing your limits — can be masked under good output and get rewarded.

Q. What are some ways to create a supportive workplace environment, in terms of mental health? What is the role of the organisational culture on mental health?

BC: A supportive workplace can go a very long way in helping mental health. By ‘supportive’, I mean that it cannot be something superficial that only comes up as an activity on Mental Health Day or as a notice only after something has already happened. An organisation should have mental health awareness embedded in its culture and not just as an extra frill added to come off as “new-age” and a “good place to work”. In a faux-supportive environment, employees can tell that the “care” being promised is not genuine. This knowledge in turn leads to stress, because they know that should they require help, they will not be able to ask for it here.

PV: The organisational culture plays a massive role. If you see the statistics of our polls, not only do many people shy from having honest conversations about mental health, but they also don’t trust the environment enough to be honest when they’re struggling. An environment of honesty is created when there is education (on what living with mental illness is like), sensitisation (to not glamorise it or turn it into office gossip), and patience (learning how to work with the person instead of against them). HRs, supervisors, colleagues — even we ourselves — all tie together in this. There have to be hard yet transparent boundaries to be able to trust someone.

Q. As a follow up, what role do supervisors play in the employees’ wellbeing and mental health?

BC: An overall company culture obviously needs to be supportive. A big part of that culture is also enforced by the supervisors. When we can’t trust our supervisors, then we can’t tell them the truth when we need help. And when we lie about that, we can find ourselves in a vicious cycle of lies and stress that eventually catches up with us. Transparency keeps everything running smoothly: about work hours, about the ability do something, even about having a bad day.

PV: Supervisors exist to enforce the boundaries I talked about earlier. They should be able to help you switch from professional to personal, to turn off the work when it’s time to, to step in and stand up for you when someone else isn’t understanding. Moreover, supervisors have to understand that good output comes from a constant stream of energy, not by exhausting an employee every single day to their max capability. Understanding simple things like work hours, respecting what people do in their private space, and providing means of taking mental health leaves can go a long way.

Q. What is the media missing when it reports news related to mental health?

BC: Sensitivity. Whether it is the violent language or the crass way in which a tragedy is turned into gossip, the media still seriously lacks in treating the topic of mental health sensitively. It is an irony that every time there is a tragedy, a host of articles pop up about mental health awareness and being there, when the media itself does not show that awareness yet. Furthermore, these conversations have to be sustained throughout, not just when there is public uproar. It has to be more than just empty conversations meant for greater web traffic. We keep putting this message of “you can reach out if you need help”, but there is no one to reach out to when something actually happens.

PV: There is a constant pendulum that swings in the media, between harping on untrue stereotypes, and then attempting to undo the damage by creating an overtly infantilised and softcore approach to mental illness. The fact is that neither is needed. Mental illness is real and people can live with it, but you don’t have to disguise it either because then it can’t prepare others for when it gets ugly. It’s a matter of understanding the complexity rather than trying to simplify it — knowing how to navigate the network of strings instead of trying to untangle them.

Q. Would you be able to spot the signs of distress at a workplace? How can you provide support at such a time?

BC: Even as someone who exhibits mental distress in different physical ways, I can’t give a one-size-fits-all answer for how to spot the signs at a workplace. When I know that I am about to spend a lot of time with someone, I usually try to let them know what my signs are, so they know if something does happen. When it comes to providing support, the first thing I do is give water. After that, the next thing I do is ask how I can help. It is effective and helpful without being invasive. It gives you a concrete way to help instead of going with your gut, and does not cause further distress as well.

PV: There is no yes or no answer to this. Different people show different signs of distress, and expect different consolations. No panic attack, no anxiety attack, no OCD attack, no PTSD attack is the same. Even a person without an illness, someone who is just having one bad day, can show different signs. Personally, if I saw someone in distress, I would try to address their symptoms instead of painfully digging at a cause. The need is to immediately make them feel better and less confused/scared, rather than try to uncover the source. Recovery is a long process — and not necessarily yours to lead. Your job as someone in the vicinity is to make sure they’re okay in that moment. Do they need fresh air? Do they need some water? Would some distracting music or videos help? Maybe a fidget spinner or puzzle? You’re there to ease a burden, not find its weight. Sometimes that alone is enough. And if you don’t know what to do, just ask. Not what’s wrong. Not if they’re okay. Hey. What do you need? How can I help?

Some signs of a panic and anxiety attack you may not know about:

This is not the last time these conversations will take place in our company, or in our individual spaces. More blog posts, more stories, more discussions will happen — because education is a constant cycle of understanding, as is destigmatisation.

We are also continuously learning and growing every day. We don’t believe our role ends with just one conversation and then forgetting about it until Mental Health Day comes around the corner.