Workplace culture is bad for mental health – Here’s why

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Physical health is not the only thing that we should be concerned about. When it comes to living a happy and long-lasting life, mental health is considered to be even slightly more important than all other things.

Since last week was World’s Mental Health day, there have been many types of research and surveys circling around with a goal to gather enough information about how regular workplace atmospheres are impacting the mental health of workers.

If you want to learn more about the results and what those surveys came up with, feel free to read until the end.

Interesting survey results

Nobody would ever think that working at an office as a regular desk-job person you’d feel any insecurities or negative impact from the people surrounding you, right? Wrong. According to the statistic by Fishbowl, a survey in which almost five thousand professionals were interviewed, about fifty percent of them answered that their workplace has a negative impact on their mental health.

Source: Fishbowl

The majority of these people were accounting professionals, teachers, consultants, and advertising professionals. You would never think that this kind of job spots can impact someone negatively, but the results tell us otherwise.

The point of this survey was to raise awareness and let the employers know that about half of their employees might be suffering from something that they’re afraid to tell. We all know that if someone decides to “whine” about certain circumstances, but they don’t receive any support from the others, they will be labeled as the only person complaining and if it continues this might eventually lead to them getting fired.

You never know what it is that is creating a negative atmosphere at your workplace, so the best way to ensure that everything is just like it should be, as an employer you’ll have to run several surveys per year, preferably anonymous ones. The best employer is the one who listens to what the workers have to say, and by providing a healthy atmosphere for them, their productivity will also increase drastically, which means that you’re benefiting from these actions as well.

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If you are someone that’s responsible for the rules and culture in a certain workplace environment, you’ll have to pay a lot of attention to your restrictions and policies. Some things that seem great to you might be pretty catastrophic to someone else. A great tip would be to talk to your employees, ask them what’s good and what’s wrong in the environment, and give them some reassurance that everything they want to say can be said without any further consequences.

Maybe you have a problem at your workplace that you are not aware of, but your employees know exactly what it is. They are able to help you, and you are able to help them. Teamwork makes the dream work, and that’s what all of those oppressed employees are hoping to see in the future. Community-building events, positive comments about improvements, activities outside of work and even company group sports are just some of the things that can help you brighten up the atmosphere by a lot. Make sure to utilize these.