A mentally healthy person is a productive person. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Mental health in Kenya has always been a sidelined issue yet it
has proved to be quite fundamental in our daily lives. Recently on
Twitter, a lot of people were giving accounts on how the toxic
environment at their workplace is taking a toll on their mental health.
Additionally,
Covid-19 has caused a surge in mental health cases as its effects
include high levels of depression, anxiety and stress, thus causing a
tremendous dip in productivity.
For employees to work
at their best and contribute to the success of their organisation it is
crucial for employers to come up a mental health policy to promote and
protect the wellbeing of their employees.
The following steps will help an organisation create a proper mental health policy.
1. Identify existing policies, programmes and practices
This includes scrutinising the current human resource policies
and practices and conducting a review and analysis as to whether they
have inculcated matters of mental health and if not, identify the gaps
that need to be addressed.
2. Review and analyse existing data
Some
organisations have easy access to a range of data, and others have
separate, disconnected groups of data. Combine your sets of data,
establish a baseline for improvement and compare this against any
relevant external reports or research. There is need to analyse the
findings in a way that highlights the key areas for improvement so you
know what to measure.
Some of the internal data that
can be utilised include: bullying and sexual harassment claims,
absenteeism reports, stress claims, exit interview data, drug or alcohol
related incidents, measurements of workplace productivity and employee
performance review feedback.
The external data to be
looked into includes: The Auditor General’s Report, World Health
Organisation’s Report, The State and Government’s report and research
papers from reputable health institutions and organisations.
3. Consultation with staff to seek feedback on the organisation’s current approach
The
management or working group should seek feedback to ensure they have a
broad and accurate picture of current issues and gaps. This can be done
through qualitative techniques such as conducting surveys. It is also
important to seek external feedback to ensure the organisation is
gathering information from a range of sources to inform the policy.
External stakeholders could include professional bodies and industry
associations.
4. Creation of the policy
Once
this information is gathered, the organisation may create a mental
health policy from an informed point of view. For starters, the
organisation may establish desired outcomes and goals of the policy, for
example through the development of an overarching statement,
highlighting the immediate goals and what success looks like for the
workplace mental health policy.
This should be clear
and simple enough for the strategy team to work towards then create a
simple and informative mental health policy for the employees and make
it easily accessible. The policy should address all the underlying
mental issues as highlighted by the staff and also advocate for persons
to speak out when faced with a mental health condition to combat the
stigma that comes with it.
Organisations with
additional resources may further create partnerships or collaborations
with persons with mental health expertise to provide counselling
platforms and also ensure their employees are involved in interactive
training sessions in relation to matters mental health. A case in point
is the Weza Platform which provides online counselling sessions and
their target market is organisations.
It is important
to note that a mentally healthy person is a productive person.
Therefore, it is about time that organisations started investing in the
mental welfare of their employees for optimum results and above all to
reduce the stigma created around mental health.
The writer is Lawyer, Intellectual property and Tax, CPM and Mental Health Advocate.
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