Today is mental health awareness day!
I, for one, am grateful that we now live in a society where mental health issues are being openly discussed and addressed.
In the work context, employers have made positive and tangible strides in this area. Many organisations now provide staff with access to counselling services. Some also have dedicated mental health first aiders. Hybrid working has enabled many of us to enjoy a work/life balance that, pre-pandemic, we never considered possible. This is all good groundwork; but is it enough?
Mental health in the workplace can be affected by all sorts of factors: long hours; heavy workload; unrealistic timescales; poor management and supervision, to name but a few.
However, one factor of equal significance (but rarely addressed by employers head-on) is the environmental one. By this, I mean the detrimental impact on morale, self-worth and job satisfaction that can occur when employers do things like repeatedly fail to deal with under-performing staff, overlook the conduct of a toxic individual/individuals or are seemingly reluctant to implement absence management procedures. All of this can result in more conscientious staff wondering why they bother, feeling under-valued, resentful and unhappy.
#Quietquitting
#Quietquitting may be the current buzzword of choice, but employee disengagement is nothing new. It starts when employees feel detached from management and powerless to change their environment. Enthusiasm is replaced with apathy, and productivity with lethargy.
Yes - it cannot be underestimated how important careful and proactive management of workplace issues can be in protecting the mental (and physical) health of workers. If not, the toxicity only spreads until the workplace soon becomes, in the words of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, little more than “a goodly apple rotten at the heart”. Don’t let that be yours!
For help and advice managing workplace issues, please contact Prettys Employment Team.
