By Heidi Kar, Amy West, Kyra Beneke*
WALTHAM, Massachusetts, USA | 9 October 2024 (IDN) — We have witnessed enormous changes in how and where we work since COVID-19. Prior to this, the workplace predominantly focused on corporate, in-person desk jobs, not virtual spaces and remote work from a laptop at a kitchen table or home office.
Yet, even with this well-documented global transition for so many, there is an equally weighty conversation needed for all people, communities, and countries to adapt well and thrive to these new realities: How we prioritize mental health in the workplace, as our definition of work rapidly evolves.
Current mental health infrastructure remains alarmingly insufficient when thinking about the spaces in which people work. By continuing to conceptualize mental health as only tools administered in health care settings or at best through human resource supports in a corporate office structure, we ignore the realities of a large majority of the world’s population.
Primarily, we must take stock of the full range of diverse work spaces across the globe—not just those of knowledge workers in Western countries with relatively stable economies, free from conflict or crisis —and understand how critical mental health care is for our places of work and the productivity and meaningful nature of that work, whether measured in job satisfaction or food on the table.
Indeed, many people’s day-to-day lives have been upended in the past five years alone by social and economic instability, conflict, weather-related disaster, and or pandemics. If one third of a person’s life is spent at work, we must recognize that strengthening mental health systems requires greater access to services and supports in whatever the workplace is defined as, so that people can feel better and work better.
Mental health access and services need to be adaptable to the types of shocks and stressors that exacerbate our evolving world, but also expansive enough to reach people where they are—earning an income or trying to protect their livelihoods.
Strong economies like resilient societies are only possible if the case for mental health in the workplace is made from a real understanding of what constitutes those work spaces—a family business, a farm, a manufacturing plant, a school, or in the streets and neighborhoods where frontline workers are serving displaced families or the homeless—and the types of support and services needed so people can access these from different vantage points.
In conflict settings in particular the workplace structure changes so rapidly as urban centers, suburban homes, and vast farmlands come under attack. In Ukraine, small and medium businesses grapple with mobilization efforts, displacement, and missiles and artillery fire that interrupt processing and production cycles and exhaust the population.
A 2024 Gradus Research report reveals that 77% of Ukrainians are experiencing stress over the current conflict and its resulting impacts, while 40% acknowledge they need mental health support. Given the strains on the workforce in Ukraine, and the shifting nature of what those work spaces are, and the dedication that Ukrainians are showing to the war effort, which is not a 9-to-5 job, there are opportunities to create meaningful synergies around what mental health and workplace support means not only now but for what will be essential for economic recovery.
When a conflict resolves, the trauma of war can have long lasting impact on communities, as the social fabric of communities and the system of public service delivery has been altered. Workplaces that were ill equipped to promote the mental health of their workforce in peace time will have significant challenges to address the diverse mental health needs of individuals who were forcibly displaced, or are returning from the frontlines, or who have lost family members, never mind those who remained at work and kept the lights on.
On World Mental Health Day, as we take stock of mental health in the workplace, we must rethink the realities of what the workplace has become for so many. For the sake of our own societal mental health and economic well-being, we must understand that supporting and addressing mental health needs in a workplace is achieved through structural change and flexible, human-centered policies, peer-to-peer supports, and sound supervisory approaches.
Figuring out how to address an individual’s mental health via psychology or counseling services set apart from a work setting is one drop in the bucket. Far more important is leaning into the reality that inflexible, inequitable, non-transparent work systems do not support peoples’ social, familial, and emotional needs and this has detrimental effects on market attachment and work-related outcomes.
By recognizing the diverse spaces in which people work, we can better inform initiatives that address the unique stressors individuals face. The World Economic Forum is investing in research on economic costs of mental health conditions ($6 trillion by 2030), as well as the correlation between mental health, experiences of work and attitudes to work, work outcomes, and how work-related factors may improve or undermine mental health.
Recent evidence from the Global Business Collaboration also underscores the links between mental health and workplace productivity, in particular among younger subgroups.
Matching evidence-based approaches to the different strands of a broader workplace perspective is essential for fostering a healthier, more resilient workforce no matter the context, so that people are both healthier and capable of navigating and sustaining efficiency and function. It is, in fact, the next frontier of economic development and prosperity.
*Heidi Kar is Distinguished Scholar for Mental Health, Trauma, and Violence Initiatives at EDC. A licensed clinical psychologist and global mental health expert, she provides leadership to domestic and international work focused on mental health, trauma, and violence. Amy West is principal international technical advisor at EDC with expertise in protection, education, and livelihoods in complex emergency and post-conflict settings. Kyra Beneke supports EDC’s trauma recovery, mental health promotion, and violence prevention team, focusing on mental health advocacy and stigma reduction in the U.S. and globally. [IDN-InDepthNews]
Image source: World Mental Health Day
