Mental health challenges, such as anxiety, depression, stress, and substance abuse, are prevalent, distressing people, their families, work members, and the community at large (WHO, 2015) . Furthermore, these mental challenges have a direct effect on workplaces leading to augmented absenteeism, diminished productivity, and heightened costs of operation (Goetzel et al., 2018) . Problems of mental health stem from a complex interplay between physiological, biological, environmental, and social elements. There is increasing proof that the context and content of work contribute significantly to the occurrence of mental health problems in work environments (WHO, 2015) .
Starting a dialogue on psychological health and safety at workplaces can be the initial step for implementing mental healthcare policies at workplaces. Embedding psychological health and safety into the decision making, process, and policies of an organization is essential for sustainability (Harvard Health, 2019) . However, there several competing needs at workplaces that renders policies on mental health hard to implement at workplaces. These include stigma and discrimination at workplaces therefore employees cannot disclose their mental health status, financial barriers to an individual or organization thereby they cannot employ a psychologist to help employees (Goetzel et al., 2018) . Besides, lack of job security as one may have a fear of losing their jobs while seeking mental health treatment and barriers to the mental health system in society.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
However, the stigma of mental illness is the major impediment that prevents individuals who require treatment from seeking it. Approximately two-thirds of individuals with diagnosable mental disorders do not get therapy (Harvard Health, 2019) . The stigma of mental disorder prevents people from pursuing treatment for mental disorder and thereby creates a higher risk of suicide. An organization can put in place policies that discourage stigma — for example, enacting policies to increase the culture awareness on mental health, where employees and staff can discuss mental health, thereby reducing stigma. Also, an organization can put in place practices such as employing psychologists and putting policies such as mandatory visits by staffs to an institution’s psychologist at least once in a month (Goetzel et al., 2018) . Therefore, employees and staff can be more open to their mental health status, thereby improving productivity.
References
Goetzel, R. Z., Roemer, E. C., Holingue, C., Fallin, M. D., McCleary, K., Eaton, W., . . . Mattingly, C. R. (2018, April). Mental Health in the Workplace: A Call to Action Proceedings From the Mental Health in the Workplace-Public Health Summit. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5891372/
Harvard Health Publishing. (2019). Mental health problems in the workplace. Retrieved from https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/mental-health-problems-in-the-workplace
World Health Organization. (2015). Mental health policies and programmes in the workplace.
