Corporate houses wake up to mental health

Sohel (pseudonym) had been lying in bed for four hours, turning this way and that, trying to sleep. He had an early morning presentation the following day and his mind refused to switch off.  His attempts to fall asleep failed miserably. 

Sohel recently went through a bad breakup. Seven days had passed, but nothing had changed for him. He was still living in the past, replaying memories over and over.

Not just failed attempts to sleep, but Sohel had recently failed to complete any of his office tasks because he was failing to concentrate. While he was trying to cope with his personal distress, he was handed two more jobs on tight deadlines. 

And he failed to meet both.

"Honestly, I could not talk to anybody because I was ashamed. Who would I talk to and what would I say? I am a 30-year-old adult. At this age, talking about heartbreaks may seem funny to others. But my sadness was real, and so was my burnout," said Sohel, an employee of a leading corporate company.

Luckily, one of his colleagues took notice of Sohel's situation and suggested he take help from experts. Sohel appreciated the advice, but he was too exhausted to find an expert, so he instantly discarded the idea. 

However, "I changed my mind when my colleague said that our office has a collaboration with LifeSpring for them to assist us with our mental health issues," said Sohel.

Like Sohel, many employees in diverse job sectors, industries or corporate houses suffer from mental health struggles that are beyond strictly career-related issues but those that have a drastic impact on one's career. 

Unfortunately, most workplaces do not consider, or try to understand 'mental health struggles' or issues that pertain to it. This however has a severe impact on the productivity and performance of employees. Recently, some corporate houses are waking up to this reality. They are taking steps to incorporate employees' mental health into their corporate work culture and policy. 

Some have even introduced mental health service schemes under their welfare section. Corporate houses like Unilever, British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BAT), Grameenphone and Robi Axiata Limited are taking these services as monthly packages under Tk300,000 to Tk1,000,000 from mental health centers like LifeSpring, Maya and Psychological Health and Wellness Clinic  (PHWC) for their employees.

"In the beginning, we took the service for six months only. It was on a trial basis actually, but we saw that our employees were enthusiastically and regularly taking the services to mitigate their stress and anxiety. Then, we understood that it is beneficial for them. On average, every month, 50 to 60 employees are taking mental health services through hotline, virtually or in person,"said Leona Mumtaz, HR, BAT.

Without available mental health services at workplaces, many employees, who have the potential and merit to excel but are held back by mental health issues, fail to perform well and eventually walk out of job industries. This is an outcome of employees not knowing where to seek solutions and direction.

A focus on mental health at the workplace through therapy or consultation sessions can also help the employees to look into themselves and realise their limitations and potential. Hence, these sessions can have a profound impact. 

In some cases, when employees address and resolve most of their problems, it later empowers them to work more efficiently. 

In a conversation with The Business Standard, Sayedul Ashraf, lead psychiatrist and MD of LifeSpring Limited, shared that usually, they find most cases related to relationship problems, performance anxiety and family issues. 

"Maintaining secrecy of our patients is our principle. We never share anything with the office until the situation becomes out of control [i.e., extreme cases]. Only then, we partially share things with the HR team to allow our patients casual leave or work under less stress.

Being vulnerable, emotional or broken is not a sign of weakness, because we have seen even a suicidal individual rising, becoming confident, getting an appraisal, running teams and achieving good things in his/her career," said Ashraf.

In most cases, patients find a strong footing after a few sessions. 

"After [a few] sessions, I realised how badly my workplace treats me. I realised that I am not here to tolerate menace. Instantly, I quit, but I am thankful that at least they had some good packages for the employees," said a former bank worker, requesting anonymity.  

Such initiatives have helped change the entirety of office culture and bring forth positivity, said Ashraful Shabab, management trainee, HR, Unilever. 

"People are now more considerate and they talk about mental health more. Once our employees started taking individual and group sessions on mental health, we noticed that everyone became more vocal about bullying, body shaming and cracking insensitive jokes in the workplace. 

After that, we strictly stopped such unhealthy practices in the name of fun and requested everybody to be more compassionate towards their colleagues. It made the office environment healthier," said Shabab.

However, Unilever observed that providing individual solutions to the employees did not really solve the problem. So, it upgraded its package and included employees' family members too. There are cases when family issues are the most impactful in the employee's life. 

"Our employees are our family; hence taking care of their families is our responsibility. We understood that until the root of the problem is solved, nothing can help," Shabab further added. 

Therefore, Unilever upgraded the mental health wellbeing package from individual to family, and interestingly, the response has been overwhelming. Many of their employee's productivity increased up to 35-40 percent after this upgrade.

"It is good that our mindset is changing, and we are no longer considering mental health issues negatively. When we started in 2017, our employees also treated seeking mental health counselling with skepticism, but after the onset of Covid-19, things have changed.  

And, we are glad that we could be a part of this change," concurred Shabab.

Interestingly, some corporate places are offering such services to their customers too, and City Alo bank is an example. "Our customers are valuable to us, and we want them to enjoy the best service that we can offer. Hence, we have discounted package offers from Maya for all sorts of treatment," said Fatema Akter Naz, Associate Manager of Business Development at City Alo.

G. Sumdany Don is the Chief Inspirational Officer at Don Sumdany Facilitation and Consultancy and said this is, in fact, a positive habitual change in corporate culture. He stated, "Starting in 2010, we saw corporate offices emphasise on health insurance, but none of them cared about mental health."

To live, mental health is important and will continue to be important in the future. Don added, "It is great that today [some] corporate houses also understand the importance of good mental health, [by] prioritising it and reaching out to the subject matter experts, instead of taking it lightly and providing a nominal solution."

He thinks it is a win-win situation for corporate houses, employees and mental health-related organisations because "everyone is benefitted here."