Mental health issues in the workplace

The essence of workplace mental health problems is the result of an imbalance between individual characteristics and the workplace environment. It is neither a personal problem of "young people's pretentiousness" nor a unilateral problem solely blamed on the boss. More than 80% of common workplace psychological problems can be alleviated through small-scale individual adjustments and environmental screening. There is no need to go to the extreme of enduring an illness or nakedly cutting off income.

Seriously, don’t take workplace emotions seriously. Have you ever had a moment like this? When the alarm goes off in the morning, your first reaction is not to get up, but "It would be great if the company suddenly closed down today". Then you sit at your workstation and stare at the computer for half an hour. There are obviously a lot of things to do but you just can't get motivated. You even feel tired when you even talk to your colleagues? Don’t think this means “lazy”. According to data from the “2023 White Paper on Mental Health in the Workplace,” 73.4% of workplace workers are in a state of moderate or above burnout, and 12.1% of them have developed psychological problems that require clinical intervention. This proportion has increased by 20 percentage points from 5 years ago. This is already a very common problem.

Last year, when I was helping an Internet company to do EAP (employee assistance program) docking, I met Xiaoxia, a young girl who was doing content operations. She had just been working for a year after graduating from 985, and her department's KPI requirements had increased by 30% for three consecutive months. She often changed topics until 12 o'clock in the morning. Later, she didn't dare to speak during weekly meetings. She always felt that everything she made was rubbish, and she was already moderately anxious about going to the hospital to check it out. The leader of her department even complained to me privately, "Young people today are really bad at coping with stress. We worked overtime much harder back then, and we didn't get sick." I was embarrassed to say that her department had gone through four operations in the past six months, and the reasons for resignations were all listed as "personal development." It is a default unspoken rule in the HR circle that if a department has a turnover rate of more than 30% for six consecutive months, no need to ask, there must be something wrong with the management, and psychological problems among employees are just symptoms.

Interestingly, academia and industry have been arguing about this type of issue, and no one can convince anyone. Researchers who believe in the theory of individual traits believe that people with high sensitivity and perfect personalities are more likely to fall into emotional infighting. I have a friend who works in finance. She has a typical form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. She has to check each voucher 5 times before she feels at ease. When closing the accounts at the end of the month, her workload is 20% less than that of her colleagues in the same position. However, she can still suffer from insomnia for a week in a row, because she is afraid that she will be blamed for something wrong. The solution for this group is also very clear: Rely on mindfulness practice and cognitive behavioral therapy to adjust your attribution style. Don’t blame yourself for everything. Don’t let your boss casually say, “This plan still has room for optimization,” and you will reflect on yourself until three in the morning.

Scholars from the other school of organizational environment theory do not accept this idea at all. The data they produced is even more disturbing: companies that implement the 996 system have 3.7 times the rate of employees suffering from anxiety and depression than companies with normal work schedules. For teams with PUA management and a last-place elimination system, the incidence of psychological problems among employees is five times higher. They believe that the essential problem is that companies limitlessly compress employees' personal space and treat people as consumables. Simply allowing employees to adjust their mentality is the "victim guilt theory." The core solution must be to promote companies to implement labor laws and provide complete psychological support services to reduce ineffective overtime and meaningless internal friction from the root cause.

I have been working in HR for 5 years. To be honest, both statements are correct, but when it comes to specific people, it is rarely black and white. Last week, a boy who worked in To B sales came to me for consultation. He said that he had not made any orders for two consecutive quarters and was scolded by his boss every day. Now he feels sick just thinking about going to work. I helped him figure it out for a long time before I found out that half of the reason was that the company had allotted all old customers who were easy to place orders to old sales this year, and the resources given to newcomers were all hard to chew. The other half was because he was proud of himself and did not dare to ask the boss for demands without placing orders. He carried on for two months and was emotionally drained. Later, he asked his leader to apply to change the customer group, and he also changed his daily goal from "Must place an order" to "Add 3 effective customers on WeChat". After only half a month, he told me that now he finally doesn't need to do any psychological training at work.

It’s quite interesting to say. I came across an extreme example last year. The young man doing the algorithm had an annual salary of 700,000, and the company clearly required 996. However, he loved writing code himself. He felt that writing code in the company was more interesting than playing games at home. He was happy after get off work every day. Who do you think you should talk to? So there really is no unified standard answer. Your own feelings are the most important.

Many people have asked me before, should I resign for the sake of mental health? I never give a straight yes or no answer. I’ve seen people quit their job after three months in Gap, and their condition got better and better every day when they traveled around. I’ve also seen people who quit their jobs because their social security was cut off and interviews were repeatedly blocked, and they became more anxious than when they were at work. If your savings are enough to last for 6 months, and you have already experienced physiological reactions - such as headaches every day, insomnia, and uncontrollable tears, then don't hesitate and run away. Health is more important than anything else. ； If you are only occasionally irritable and the workload is actually within the tolerable range, then you might as well try small adjustments first. For example, you can log out of your work WeChat account directly after get off work, and take half a day to completely break away from work on the weekend to climb a mountain and visit a solo exhibition. It will be much more effective than reading ten chicken soup articles on "How to adjust your mentality in the workplace."

Psychological problems in the workplace are actually like colds. Some people have strong resistance and are fine with a blow of wind, while some people have weak resistance and can easily catch it during the flu season. You can’t blame the person who got infected “Why is it happening to you when everyone else is fine?” You can’t blame the flu itself, right? In the final analysis, work is just a transaction of equal exchange. You sell your time in exchange for money, and the money you earn already includes a part of the "outrage fee." But if the anger you receive exceeds what the money can cover, and even costs your own health, then the deal will be a big loss.

After all, no job is as important as yourself, right?