Mental health and well-being in the work place has become increasingly important nowadays and getting much more attention than before. It is now considered as important as physical and environmental health are concerned, partly because of the increasing awareness and efforts, mainly as a result of recent awareness promotions by movements in the occupational and safety area in the mental health and well-being profession. Occupational mental health is comparatively very new than the physical and environmental health hazards and well-being and yet, the adverse effects they carry to the well-being of human workers in general are tremendous and unimaginable to everyone and its management is believed to be very costly.
Mental health problem in the work place is the potential risk for mental illness and is the leading cause of sickness absenteeism, as well as long term work incapacity, especially in the most part of the developing countries and to vulnerable individuals. As mental health and well-being is very important to the survival of humans wherever they are, then poor mental health is surely detrimental, mainly to the workers and business organisations, as occupational mental health is concerned. Humans need jobs in order to earn for their living and now they have to understand that workplace settings have considerable amount of capacity to pose risks of mental health insults and psychosocial hazards. Then what does occupational mental health entail?
There is no specific definition of what occupational mental health is and research is still undergoing to find in what ways this construct should be conceptualised. However, for the purpose of concise and brief understanding, it may be understood as the management and promotion of workers’ mental health as applicable to the workplace settings. This includes managing and promoting the synergistic cooperation and balance between the workers’ and organisations’ perspectives in fulfilling the mental health needs of the workers and at the same time reducing the organisational and workplace harms that may be hazardous to the mental health and well-being of the workers. In the occupational mental health, the balance and equilibrium in mental health capacity and maintenance is the main target to achieve, and the mechanism of achievement is done by the worker at the individual level, and by the management profiles at the organisation level.
As far as the occupational mental health is concerned, occupational mental health is not rigidly regarded as the sole property or entirely belongs to workers or organisations alone, rather it is reciprocally considered as the joint effort and activities by both of them. Both of them should be working together cooperatively and hand in hand to achieve the same desired goal in maintaining good mental health and well being and productivity. Occupational mental health exists out of the understanding that the working environment of the workers in any organisation and the nature of the work itself are both very important factors in influencing not only the health outcomes of the workers but also the productivity capacity and profitable level that the organisation has planned to earn through the commitment of the workers and the management.
Occupational mental health of the workers is very important since it affects the health outcomes of the workers, physically, mentally and emotionally, and through the same mechanism of action, it determines the productivity level of an organisation. For these reasons, understanding about the factors that influence, promote or hinder good occupational mental health and well-being should be sought by everyone. As far as the occupational mental health is concerned, there are three major sources of how occupational mental health may interact with one another and come into practice in the workplace environment.
First, the individual workers. Every individual worker has got their own uniqueness, talent, personality makeup and resilience skills or even physical and mental health morbidity in the first place all of which may influence their interaction with the workplace environment and vice versa. Secondly, the working environment of an organisation. It depends on to what extent the working conditions and environment of the job influence the workers’ capacity and well-being. The ways the organisation communicate, relate and appraise the workers actually determine the ways the workers’ perceptions, appraisals and relationships towards the organisation. And thirdly, it is about the nature of the job itself. The job may influence the worker’s ability to cope with the demands it poses which might be in terms of current status of physical and mental strength and energy, time or money, or may require worker’s readiness to cope in terms of qualifications and experience or current level of job training they have. These are influential factors that always exist and interact with one another when occupational mental health is concerned. What does the job or occupation have to do with worker’s mental health and well-being?
Longer working experience is good and contributes to the added value to certain individuals and organisations, but it is not as always as good to the physical or mental well-being of a person. Research have shown that longer working period poses considerable amount of risks and hazards due to longer sitting or standing and sedentary work styles and in the end, implicates the development of musculoskeletal syndromes and pain, psychosocial hazards and stress, as well as burnout syndromes, anxiety and depression, and to a certain extent, shorten life. Considering this, therefore, the occupational mental health management should also involve education and prevention of psychosocial hazards in the work settings from taking place. Fortunately or otherwise, this country needs more empirical and scientific data regarding workplace environment and human health hazards and see or find out how they interact and influence worker’s sickness and organisation productivity. In 2016, the Ministry of Health conducted a National Health and Morbidity Survey and found that almost 4.2 million people in the country aged 16 and older had certain issues with their mental health conditions. Imagine that in the next ten or five year’s time, this inflicted mental health condition individuals will become part or already part of the current national labour system. What do the government policies have to do with this research statistics in terms of occupational mental health? Has there been any thought of? And has there been any national plan on mental health issues in the workplace? In Islam, working is considered as part of tawhidic manifestation and should be done properly and effectively as work is one of the ways towards meeting God’s pleasure and forgiveness.
Allah said in the Quran, in Chapter 9, verse 105 means.. ‘and say: Work (righteousness), soon will Allah observe your work, and His Messenger, and the Believers: soon will you be brought back to the Knower of what is hidden and what is open: then will He show you the truth of all that ye did’.