10 October 2024
The theme of this year’s World Mental Health Day - “It’s time to prioritise mental health in the workplace” fills me with relief, excitement and frustration. We are living in a world where mental health conditions are on the rise.
The theme of this year’s World Mental Health Day - “It’s time to prioritise mental health in the workplace” fills me with relief, excitement and frustration. We are living in a world where mental health conditions are on the rise.
Recent data suggests that approximately 45% of the population will experience a mental illness in their lifetime, and 22% of the population has experienced mental illness in the last 12 months. Recent research by the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicates that mental health disorders amongst young people have increased substantially in the last 15 years.
There’s no question that Covid-19 had a significant impact on mental health, but even before the pandemic, data indicated that the total costs of poor mental health on Australia’s economy, government, and society were estimated to be $200-220 billion per year (Productivity Commission, 2020).
The mental health crisis is only increasing and the impact on individuals, families, teams and workplaces is staggering.
Hence my frustration. Why are we only just realising that we need to prioritise mental health in the workplace? Why have rates had to hit eye watering levels before we realise that more needs to be done?
There have been improvements though – and the introduction of the psychosocial risk legislation is a good example. This has helped increase organisational understanding and ownership about creating workplaces that minimise risk and harm to the psychological health of individuals. But we are only just starting to scratch the surface in our focus on proactive strategies to support employees with mental health concerns.
Countless studies have been conducted to understand how to build engagement and increase wellbeing across and within organisations. We have highly validated, reliable theories and frameworks developed by well-respected researchers that outline the combination of factors necessary to build healthy workplaces. We know that people need autonomy, a workload that enables skill development but prevents burnout, role clarity, and connections with their team and their line manager. We recognise the importance of feedback, work-life balance, skill variety, adequate compensation, opportunities for development and a psychologically safe environment that embraces failure as a necessary component of growth.
Yes, we have learnt a lot from the research about the ingredients for engagement and wellbeing.
We also understand different theories of work design and the crucial components for setting up the working environment to produce optimal outputs. This has been a particular area of focus in recent years, as we try to understand the best combination of working conditions that will enable people to thrive, given that almost all workplaces have permanently changed since 2020.
But what seems to be the key sentiment from research in the last few years is ‘it depends’. Most data suggest hybrid working models work for the majority of employees (but not all) – particularly when the employee can drive their own flexible arrangements. Whilst some data indicate better mental health outcomes for those working predominately remotely, other research indicates those who work almost exclusively from home experience the greatest mental health challenges. Some data suggest that a four-day work week creates greater productivity for some (but not all) – depending on people’s initial perceptions of their work. Most research is indicating that working from home suits some tasks well, particularly when people are doing ‘deeper’ thinking work or a truly autonomous task. Working in the office appears to produce better results when people are working collaboratively or on problem-solving and creative tasks.
In short, there is no silver bullet when it comes to working conditions and work design. The answer always seems to come back to ‘it depends’.
And yet, all of this work and research that is being done still appears to take a reactive perspective on mental health in the workplace, looking at the impact of various arrangements and conditions on mental health outcomes. But what can we do to truly prioritise mental health in our employees?
I don’t know that we are ever going to find the best answer to that question because – surprise surprise – it will always depend. What works for one person, doesn’t always work for another. I believe we need to have multiple tools in our toolkit so that we can apply whatever solution, arrangement and design suits the individual as well as the business.
Put another way - consider the Law of Requisite Variety, a concept introduced by Ross Ashby in 1956. This concept states that for a system (like an organisation) to be able to control, manage, or respond to the complexity of its environment, it must have at least as much variety (or flexibility) as the environment it seeks to manage. Given the increasing complexity of the world in which we are living, we need to have as many tools in our toolkit to respond in the best way possible.
So where does that leave us? Yes, we need to prioritise mental health in the workplace – it is an ever-increasing reality and no pocket of the population is immune, with some of the most vulnerable being the most impacted.
But we also need to be curious and be kind. We need to understand that no one size fits all, that even the best psychological theories will often generate the answer – it depends. We need to be open-minded and learn more about one another, recognising that the fastest way to build our empathy is to ask lots of questions. As businesses, we need to be brave enough to experiment and remember that the variety of options at our disposal need to match the complexity of the world in which we live.
We are making progress in this space but there is always more we can – and need to – do. We don’t always have the right answers but curiosity, kindness and compassion can help us fill our toolkit, so that we can keep building workplaces that truly and genuinely prioritise mental health.
The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.
– Carl Jung
– Carl Jung