The path to progress in both well-being and career growth crucially involves empowering employees to manage stress, anxiety, and burnout. This approach is supported by various findings from studies conducted and shared by the World Health Organization:
- Work Environment and Mental Health: A poor working environment, characterized by factors like discrimination, excessive workloads, and job insecurity, can detrimentally impact mental health. Conversely, decent work conditions promote mental well-being by providing a livelihood, a sense of achievement, community inclusion, and structured routines
- Economic Impact: Mental health issues have significant economic repercussions. For instance, depression and anxiety lead to the loss of approximately 12 billion working days yearly, costing around US$ 1 trillion in lost productivity.
- Risks to Mental Health at Work: Psychosocial risks at work, such as under-use of skills, inflexible work hours, unsafe conditions, negative organizational culture, and job insecurity, can all contribute to mental health problems. Workers in the informal economy, without regulatory health and safety protections, are particularly vulnerable.
- Actions for Mental Health at Work: Employers and governments can improve workplace mental health through various actions. These include preventing work-related mental health conditions, pro moting mental health at work, supporting workers with mental health conditions, and creating an enabling environment for change.
- Organizational Interventions: Employers are encouraged to implement interventions that target working conditions and environments. This includes providing flexible working arrangements and frameworks to address workplace violence and harassment.
- Capacity Building and Training: Strengthening the ability to recognize and act on mental health conditions at work is vital. This includes manager training for mental health, worker training in mental health literacy, and interventions for individuals to manage stress and reduce mental health symptoms.
- Support for Workers with Mental Health Conditions: Supporting people with mental health conditions to participate and thrive at work involves reasonable accommodations, return-to-work programs, and supported employment initiatives.
- Creating an Enabling Environment: This requires leadership commitment to mental health at work, sufficient investment in resources, alignment of employment laws with human rights instruments, integration of mental health across sectors, participation of workers in decision-making, and compliance with laws and regulations.
Empowering employees to navigate stress, anxiety, and burnout is therefore not just a matter of individual well-being but a strategic necessity for organizational success and societal economic health.
About the World Health Organization (WHO)
The WHO’s team of 8000+ professionals includes the world’s leading public health experts, including doctors, epidemiologists, scientists and managers. Together, they coordinate the world’s response to health emergencies, promote well-being, prevent disease and expand access to health care. By connecting nations, people and partners to scientific evidence they can rely on, they strive to give everyone an equal chance at a safe and healthy life.
