The importance of MENTAL health in companies
I remember the following story particularly well. I heard it many years ago during a coaching training: A young man works as a summer intern at a freight forwarding company. Its job is to sort packages. These come over a slide at more or less regular intervals. He does his best and as more packages arrive, he steps it up. With the result that these come even faster. Be it due to fatigue that has forced him to work more slowly, or for other reasons. The young man has experienced that the parcels arrive just as quickly as he takes them away.
If the story is true, he has probably not only done a good job, but also had an experience for life: that he has an influence on the system of which he is a part. And that the corporate culture allows or even promotes that processes are well designed with regard to maintaining continuous work performance.
Of course, most workplaces are much more complicated than in this simple story. Employees are not standing in front of a slide, but in front of many. E-mails are pouring in as well as phone calls. Meetings interrupt the flow of work, bring new work orders, but also mean work themselves. Inbetween, or actually as the main task, complex projects have to be managed. In the case of managers, it is also important to manage employees and support them in their equally comprehensive tasks. There is often not enough time to do justice to all this.
Coaching shows that leaders in positions of responsibility in particular are prone to overstepping their own boundaries in order to get rid of the packages assigned to them. Unfortunately, until they can't do it anymore.
In its 2022 absenteeism report1, the economic research institute WIFO puts the average duration of sick leave due to mental and behavioural disorders at 37 days. Even if the term burnout does not appear explicitly in this report, we can assume that the so-called mental and physical exhaustion has a high proportion of it.
It would be short-sighted to think that maintaining the ability to work is something purely private and individual. The example at the beginning of the text has also shown that the performance of employees depends to a large extent on the design of the processes. This includes work content and work processes that are understood and therefore considered meaningful, and working hours that allow a healthy social life. Above all, there is the corporate culture, which is reflected in the mission statement, leadership and team culture.
Prevention and support in stressful situations, increased attention to life balance and meaning not only help employees. They have the potential to sustainably strengthen the entire company.
[1]Absenteeism Report 2022: Absenteeism and absenteeism due to illness and accidents in Austria (wko.at) (German only)
