Ergonomics: Healthy mind at work
Positive mental health
Positive mental health is an integral fragment of holistic wellness. Typically the physical dimension of health gets its due share of attention; however the psychological, emotional, social, familial, and occupational well being seldom get consideration. Checks for body weight and blood pressure; dietary advice, fitness training and weight control, diabetes information, all find space in employee wellness programmes. The healthy mind, which has enormous contribution to an individual’s overall health, often gets overlooked. Every average working individual spends one third of his or her life at the workplace. Ensuring wellness at work is thus imperative to assure positive health of every individual in totality.
Workplace wellness
Emotional problems of employees are not left behind at the gateway to their workplace; they always accompany them to their desk and can influence their performance significantly. The workplace ought to offer employees job satisfaction, contentment and personal enrichment. It must support work-life balance, encourage openness and friendliness, help one build self-confidence and must be accessible and supportive to the employee in every regard. If work empowers one to function at one’s 100%, the employee will offer 100% back to his job. That would be a win-win situation for each one. Growth always occurs from a personal level. Organizations are after all made up of their individual people.
Work pressures and stress
Demands and pressures in every line of work are inevitable. All stressors raise psychological defences and attempt to build on the internal support mechanisms. However, if these stressors over power one’s coping ability, the individual feels left out, perceives no support from the environment; or feels that he/she has absolutely no control over the situation. This facilitates the pressures to build up even more. The right kind of stress (eustress) energizes employees and motivates them to perform better and achieve higher goals. On the other hand, the wrong stress (distress) leads to absenteeism, disability staff turnover, and a low productivity. Employee distress is an important area of concern today.
What we can offer
Organizations are increasingly interested in the health of their workers, and many organizations are putting mental health principles to work. Most companies have vast human resource departments. Appropriate employee assessments at induction, well timed mental wellness checks, support and motivational workshops; all assure retention as well as optimum quality of life for the senior staff, managers and employees alike. They not only benefit the employees, they profit the establishments too owing to betterment in work performance and reduction in absenteeism. All organisations ought to step up to partake in this patriarchal responsibility. When wellness becomes personal as well as corporation answerability, people unconsciously, but rightfully get on the path of self-growth, thereby assuring positive psychological health of the nation at large.