By Delil Athie Diaz*
During the last three years, companies have had to face a series of changes and transformations more rapidly in order to respond to the challenges of one of the phenomena that is hindering mental health worldwide. The statistics reveal a 25 to 30% increase in cases of depression and anxiety (Salari et al., 2020). 40% of people suffer consequences of work stress and 18.4 million people live with this serious health problem.
How does this impact businesses? The growth in the number of people who suffer from work stress has led to situations that have a financial impact on organizations due to their involvement in rates lower productivity, increases in absenteeism, high turnover rates and costs of the processes of attraction, talent selection and training (González et al. 2022). Lost productivity related to mental health issues is estimated to cost the global economy one trillion dollars annually (WHO, 2020).
Work stress is one of the main mental health problems. It depends on how each person reacts to the presence of demands and pressures in their work, which do not match their skills and resources and which test their ability to face a situation (ILO, 2016). For this reason, the conditions of the work environment and the organizational culture are the key environment for a person to feel supported and able to face these challenges or, on the contrary, generate a greater feeling of incapacity. Companies need to ensure tools and strategies to address these different needs in their collaborators.
What causes work stress?
The boom in the use of communication technologies to address remote work and the search to generate agile work environments focused on innovation as ways to boost efficiency have modified the forms of interaction and work dynamics. For example, more and more hours of the working day they require technology; Communication is given by messages and audios on the cell phonevirtual meetings, emails or interactions with artificial intelligence.
There are those for whom it has been easier or more difficult to adapt to these changes. For some people, this has led to new opportunities for growth, strengthening of skills, and professional and personal development, contributing to their emotional well-being; while, for others, the same situations lead to difficulties in adapting and increased stress levels that affect their mental and physical health. For some people, working from home and hybrid work schemes have become an environment of flexibility that generated greater motivation and commitment; while for others it has implied new challenges to eliminate distractors, focus and establish adequate limits to comply with basic health conditions such as meal times, sleep routine and time to carry out personal activities. Studies carried out months before the start of the pandemic showed that 70% of people reported not having an adequate level of development of the skills they require to do their job (Glaveski, 2019).
What can companies do to contribute to mental health?
- Recognize the abilities and talents of each person to develop them in a motivational environment.
- Apply strategies to face current changes and adapt to different needs.
- Generate spaces for training and development in which issues of well-being, quality of life and health are addressed.
- Incorporate policies and environments that promote diversity and inclusion, which strengthens a greater sense of belonging and acceptance for all people.
- Create environments of respect and with adequate conditions to exercise maternity and paternity by strengthening the work-life balance.
- Promote leadership, involvement in decision-making, cohesion and collaboration in work teams.
- Foster spaces for social interaction and active communication styles.
- Establish working conditions with flexible hours and hybrid work schemes, adequate vacation days and appropriate conditions of the physical work space.
- Review the workloads so that they are consistent and there is an adequate balance of more complex tasks with appropriate levels of demand.
- Provide clarity in the career development landscape.
This way, the organizations continue with the process to strengthen the conditions that make it possible to ensure and promote mental health as a fundamental and essential right. It is up to current leaders to expand actions to prevent and promote environments that favor people’s mental health and well-being. The transformation challenge continues and expands as a result of the increase in cases of anxiety and depression that affect millions of people.
*Delil Athié is a psychologist, academic at the School of Psychology at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the Universidad Panamericana.
Editor’s Note: This text belongs to our Opinion section and reflects only the author’s vision, not necessarily the High Level point of view.
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References:
González Enríquez, KM (2022). Work stress during and post confinement in workers of a restaurant in the city of Guayaquil, 2022: diagnosis. http://201.159.223.180/bitstream/3317/18366/1/T-UCSG-PRE-JUR-MD-TSO-96.pdf
Glaveski, S. (2019). Where companies go wrong with Learning & Development. Harvard Business Review.
International Labor Organization. (2016). Stress at Work: a collective challenge. World Day for Safety and Health at Work April 28, 2016. https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/2016/490658.pdf
World Health Organization [OMS]. (2020). Mental health and psychosocial considerations during the confinement by COVID-19. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331490/WHO-2019-nCoV-MentalHealth-2020.1-eng.pdf.
Salari, N., Hosseinian-Far, A., Jalali, R. et al. (2020). Prevalence of stress, anxiety, depression among the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Global Health, 1657. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00589-w.