The modern-day workplaces have become a cauldron of great distress and unrest. The workplace environment can impact an employee mental health & well being. Nowadays, as we see, depression and anxiety are the leading mental health issues bothering the corporate employees. Eventually, due to this excessive workload, the rate of job dropout has gone higher than ever before and attrition has become a global threat that can never be ignored.
Employee Mental health issues at workplace often remain unnoticed and unrecognized. It’s not only damaging individual health but organizational health, in terms of productivity and profits are also getting impacted. WHO researches show that depression and anxiety have a significant economic impact, they cost in low productivity up to 1 trillion US$ per year. Moreover, the scaled up treatment for mental disorders is also higher for the companies. Globally, 264 million people suffer from workplace depression, and the figures are rising every year.
Negative work environments lead to loss of interest and motivation, thereby absenteeism and poor performance. People are frustrated with inflexible working hours and unhealthy corporate politics which are affecting mental tranquillity. Employee morale is going down and stressed workers experience a reduced sense of mental wellness. Feelings of anger, hopelessness and anxiety takes a toll on organizational productivity. Studies show low well-being score can cost a company up to 28000$ a year in sick day expenses and lost productivity, while happy and motivated employees cost only about 840$ a year.
Burnout and mental stagnation of employees are causing low performance and productivity. Unhealthy, corporate politics and performance pressure with no job satisfaction is leading to job dropouts. With less employee morale, meeting organizational objectives get difficult as the quality of work done is unsatisfactory. Poor work ethics by one teammate can act as a social virus to a cohesive and well functioning system. It can hamper the morale of the entire team and pull down its performance.
Employee turnover is another issue bothering corporate since employees feel that what once kept them working is no longer going well and they decide to quit the job. The projects seem a rote task and employees do not involve with work. Unfortunately, turnover brings in negativity
within the organization and acts as a viral attack for others to follow.
The need of the hour is to make a healthy workplace, where employees can maintain job morale and motivation to perform with full potential. Organizations will have to recognize and reward the valuable contributions of their employees to make a happy workplace.
