Smart Business: Prioritizing Mental Health In The Workplace
If you’re like me, work pretty much consumes your life. And if you’re like me, you like it that way… Most of the time. Whether you’re like me or not, we all can admit that work consumes a significant portion of our lives. We spend the vast majority of our day working for a check, and our mental health in the workplace directly impacts our overall well-being. For companies, prioritizing mental health in the workplace isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s smart business.
Mental Health In The Workplace: The Bare Minimum
When it comes to workplace conditions, no one should have to be scraping by and losing their sanity with the bare minimum amount of support. According to World Health Organization, “Decent work supports good mental health by providing: a livelihood, a sense of confidence, purpose and achievement, an opportunity for positive relationships and inclusion in a community, and a platform for structured routines, among many other benefits.” When a company fails to provide the bare minimum for their employees, that’s where problems arise. Safe, healthy work environments are important for a plethora of reasons, but primarily for the consideration of an employee’s mental health in the workplace.
The Enormous Benefits
Now that we’ve talked about what a workplace should look like, let’s talk about the benefits both the employees and the business itself will reap due to providing these healthy conditions. According to the National Library of Medicine, “Mental health problems have an impact on employers and businesses directly through increased absenteeism, negative impact on productivity and profits, as well as an increase in costs to deal with the issue. In addition, they impact employee morale adversely.”
Imagine… A business just simply provides the work conditions listed above, and those affects are just virtually non-existent. Is it that simple… Pretty much. Of course, there are case-by-case situations in every individual workplace as far as specific conditions they have set in place. But overall, if an individual is supplied with a “decent” workplace, that employee, and their workplace, will likely thrive.
