WHO and the International Labour Organization (ILO) on Wednesday 28 September 2022 issued a joint statement calling for new measures to tackle mental health issues at the workplace.
The joint press release said, a new global WHO/ILO guideline on mental health at work have been reinforced by practical strategies outlined in the joint WHO/ILO policy brief.
‘’The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) have called for concrete actions to address mental health concerns in the working population today”, the release announced.
ILO estimates that about 12 billion workdays are lost annually due to depression and anxiety.
This according to the global labour organization the tendency costs the global economy close to US$ 1 trillion.
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The ILO and the World Health organization as measures to address the situation have issued two new publications today.
The two documents are WHO Guidelines on mental health at work and a derivative WHO/ILO policy brief.
WHO guidelines on mental health at work recommend actions to mitigate tendencies that create distress or put workers at risk of mental health such as heavy workloads, negative behaviours, and other factors at work.
WHO as part of the measures recommends manager training to build leadership capacity to prevent stressful work environments and respond to workers in distress.
The 2022 World Mental Health Report indicates that 15% of the one billion people living with mental disorder in 2019 were working-age adults.
WHO noted that a number of societal issues negatively affect mental health.
Bullying and psychological violence (also known as “mobbing”) are major complaints of workplace harassments that have negative impacts on mental health yet discussing or disclosing mental health remains a taboo in work settings globally, the joint statement said.
The guidelines therefore recommend better ways to accommodate the needs of workers with mental health conditions and interventions that support their return to work.
For those with severe mental health conditions, the guidelines provide interventions that facilitate their entry into paid employment.
Further, the guidelines call for interventions that make provision for the protection of health, humanitarian, and emergency workers.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General pointed out that poor mental health can have devastating impact of individual performance and productivity.
“The well-being of the individual is reason enough to act, but poor mental health can also have a devastating impact on a person’s performance and productivity. It’s time to focus on the detrimental effect work can have on our mental health.
These new guidelines can help prevent negative work situations and offer much-needed mental health protection and support for working people,’’ Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasized.
Guy Ryder, ILO Director-Genera, opined that investment and leadership will be critical to the implementation of the strategies.
“As people spend a large proportion of their lives in work – a safe and healthy working environment is critical. We need to invest to build a culture of prevention around mental health at work, reshape the work environment to stop stigma and social exclusion, and ensure employees with mental health conditions feel protected and supported,” said, Guy Ryder, ILO Director-General.
In 2020, governments worldwide spent an average of just 2% of health budgets on mental health, with lower-middle income countries investing less than 1%.
