Mi­ran­da Singh BA

Too of­ten, we cre­ate a façade and put on a brave face as we take on the world dai­ly. Many suf­fer in si­lence as they can­not af­ford to stop and seek as­sis­tance or ap­ply ba­sic self-care. Men­tal health is­sues are deep-root­ed in to­day’s world.

Men­tal health in­cludes our emo­tion­al, phys­i­cal and so­cial well-be­ing. It is an es­sen­tial com­po­nent of our over­all health. It af­fects how we feel, think and act. Most times, men­tal health is­sues are trig­gered by a stress­ful sit­u­a­tion in our per­son­al and/or pro­fes­sion­al life. My ex­pe­ri­ence as an HR Prac­ti­tion­er, with a port­fo­lio main­ly con­sist­ing of em­ploy­ee re­la­tions func­tions, cou­pled with the close work­ing-re­la­tion­ships with most em­ploy­ees, has al­lowed op­por­tu­ni­ty to recog­nise those who may be in a stress­ful sit­u­a­tion and may re­quire as­sis­tance from a pro­fes­sion­al coun­sel­lor or an ex­pert in this field. While there may be per­sons who will­ing­ly reach out for help, there are oth­ers who are hes­i­tant due to a per­ceived or re­al stig­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with ask­ing for help or ac­cept­ing it.

Ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO), “De­pres­sion is one of the lead­ing caus­es of dis­abil­i­ty. Sui­cide is the fourth lead­ing cause of death among 15-29-year-olds. Peo­ple with se­vere men­tal health con­di­tions die pre­ma­ture­ly – as much as two decades ear­ly – due to pre­ventable phys­i­cal con­di­tions.”

Some of the key signs to iden­ti­fy­ing men­tal health ill­ness in the work­place in­clude low lev­els of en­gage­ment, sub­stance abuse, high ab­sen­teeism, changes in eat­ing be­hav­iours, vi­o­lence and or ag­gres­sion, ir­ra­tional para­noia or anx­i­ety, with­draw­al from so­cial sit­u­a­tions and change in work pat­tern.

As col­leagues, we can as­sist by en­cour­ag­ing them to talk, lis­ten­ing ef­fec­tive­ly, re­as­sur­ing that in­for­ma­tion will be kept con­fi­den­tial, avoid­ing mak­ing as­sump­tions, refer­ing them to HR for ar­rang­ing EAP ser­vices, or seek­ing ex­ter­nal sup­port, or sim­ply be­ing a friend.

Em­ploy­ers can al­so con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly to em­ploy­ees’ men­tal health by cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment that dis­pels or re­duces the neg­a­tive stig­ma about men­tal health is­sues. En­cour­age them to speak open­ly about men­tal health and cre­ate aware­ness ses­sions, look out for one an­oth­er as we con­tin­ue to be our broth­ers and sis­ters’ keep­ers. Show em­pa­thy and com­pas­sion if an em­ploy­ee ap­proach­es a stress­ful is­sue. Em­pha­sise that dis­cus­sions woll be kept pri­vate and con­fi­den­tial un­less in­for­ma­tion is re­ceived about in­ten­tion to self-harm or cause harm to oth­ers. Re­spect when em­ploy­ees are on leave from work and al­low them the time to recharge. In­tro­duce a flex­i­ble work-arrange­ment to fos­ter a healthy cul­ture of work-life bal­ance. Host reg­u­lar men­tal-well­ness ses­sions from ex­ter­nal providers and hope­ful­ly by do­ing this, it will cre­ate a healthy work­space for all and break the bar­ri­ers

I re­call dur­ing the ini­tial stages of the pan­dem­ic; my em­ploy­er was com­mit­ted to hav­ing vir­tu­al men­tal-well­ness ses­sions done for all em­ploy­ees. It was al­most sec­ond na­ture for the com­pa­ny to take this course of ac­tion, as health and safe­ty has al­ways been a num­ber one pri­or­i­ty. The com­pa­ny was ded­i­cat­ed to keep­ing staff en­gaged and did what­ev­er they saw fit at the time, from col­leagues vol­un­teer­ing to host vir­tu­al ses­sions based on their var­i­ous skills from ba­sic gar­den­ing, to make­up ap­pli­ca­tion, can­vas paint­ing and much more. This ap­proach as­sist­ed em­ploy­ees to cope bet­ter in a time of high un­cer­tain­ty. It al­so re­formed and strength­ened work-re­la­tion­ships, eased anx­i­ety, as some re­port­ed, as we nav­i­gat­ed the course to­geth­er. Our or­gan­i­sa­tion has cer­tain­ly had some pos­i­tive out­comes

Per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of our men­tal health is para­mount and as re­silient be­ings, we over­come chal­lenges dai­ly. In the midst of all the chaos, we must en­sure that a bal­ance is sought and main­tained. Pri­ori­tise self-care and find ways to al­le­vi­ate work-re­lat­ed stress. Yo­ga, ex­er­cise, a healthy di­et, con­sis­tent sleep pat­terns, so­cial­is­ing with friends and fam­i­ly and learn­ing to re­lax are all healthy ways to man­age any stress­ful sit­u­a­tion.

As I con­tin­ue to prac­tice Hu­man Re­sources with a gen­uine pas­sion, my goal re­mains to help oth­ers in their var­i­ous cir­cum­stances. I am for­tu­nate to be part of a work cul­ture where the bar­ri­ers are low, ow­ing to men­tal health aware­ness ses­sions, and em­ploy­ees are fa­mil­iar with the process to seek as­sis­tance from the rel­e­vant per­sons or de­part­ment. A cul­ture where high em­ploy­ee-en­gage­ment ac­tiv­i­ties are com­mon.

“I think it’s re­al­ly im­por­tant to take the stig­ma away from men­tal health… My brain and my heart are re­al­ly im­por­tant to me. I don’t know why I wouldn’t seek help to have those things be as healthy as my teeth.”—Ker­ry Wash­ing­ton, from Huff­Post

The Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (HRMATT) is the lead­ing voice of the Hu­man Re­source Pro­fes­sion lo­cal­ly. HRMATT Says is a col­umn meant to ad­dress is­sues and con­cerns of pro­fes­sion­als and the gen­er­al pub­lic fo­cused on Hu­man Cap­i­tal De­vel­op­ment. To­day’s ar­ti­cle is writ­ten by HRMATT mem­ber and Hu­man Re­source Prac­ti­tion­er, Mi­ran­da Singh. Learn more about HRMATT by vis­it­ing our web­site: www.hrmatt.com. Fol­low us on Face­book, LinkedIn, In­sta­gram and Twit­ter. Con­tact us at: 687-5523 or via email: sec­re­tari­at@hrmatt.com

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