It’s time to make mental health at work a priority!
World Mental Health Day, celebrated every year on October 10th, offers us an opportunity to focus on the relationship between work and mental health.
Considering that most of the world’s population works, it becomes immediately clear that this issue affects millions of people. Especially if we consider how much of our daily lives we spend at work, it is clear how crucial a role it plays in our well-being.
According to the World Health Organization, there are many factors that affect mental health in the workplace. Risks to mental health at work can include:
- under-use of skills or being under-skilled for work;
- excessive workloads or work pace, understaffing;
- long, unsocial or inflexible hours;
- lack of control over job design or workload;
- unsafe or poor physical working conditions;
- organizational culture that enables negative behaviours;
- limited support from colleagues or authoritarian supervision;
- violence, harassment or bullying;
- discrimination and exclusion;
- unclear job role;
- under- or over-promotion;
- job insecurity, inadequate pay, or poor investment in career development; and
- conflicting home/work demands.
These factors not only have a profound impact on employees’ mental health, but also have wider social consequences, affecting both people’s personal lives and the social fabric.
Through our experience in the Psychological Service of the Athens Solidarity Center we observe that most of our beneficiaries bring for management matters related to issues such as burnout, uncertainty, performance anxiety, collegial relationships, toxic work climate.
This finding is so common that it is often taken for granted, underlining the extent of the problem. It is time to bring these issues into focus, to rethink our approaches and to start treating mental health at work with the significance it has.
*Since August 1st, 2023, the operation of the Athens Solidarity Center by SolidarityNow is supported by the Swiss-Greek Cooperation Programme (Embassy of Switzerland in Greece) to reducing economic and social disparities in the EU and by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum. **The Center is also supported by the Municipality of Athens.