China Workplace Mental Health Survey Report

First-tier cities account for 42% of the survey samples, 29% are new first-tier cities, 29% are second-tier, third-tier cities and below, and the data confidence level is 95%)

Last month, when I was working on an employee support project for a leading e-commerce company in Hangzhou, I met a 32-year-old operations manager. His department performance had been S for six months in a row. Just because he stayed in the hospital with his son who had a high fever for two days during last year’s Double 11, his quarterly performance dropped sharply. After being slapped with a B, the first thing his boss asked him to talk to was, "Have things in your life recently affected your work?" He said that on the way home that day, he was waiting at a red light and suddenly cried uncontrollably. He cried for 10 minutes before he dared to go upstairs because he was afraid that his wife and children would see him.

Don’t think this is an exception. 62.7% of people in our survey have encountered similar "unexpected disasters": it is obvious that the leader has temporary changes and requires you to work overtime, but later you will be blamed for "low work efficiency"; it is obvious that colleagues working across departments are blaming the blame, but in the end you have to bear the responsibility alone; more common is the "you have to look for the reasons from yourself" type of PUA. It is strange that you have no emotional problems over time.

Interestingly, when we talked with the company, 80% of the HR people felt that they were wronged: "We spend hundreds of thousands every year on EAP (Employee Assistance Plan) services, hold monthly mental health lectures, and have free psychological counseling quota, but no one uses it?" Turning to the employees, the answer is very realistic: 68% of people are afraid that their seeking psychological counseling will be reported to their leaders, and they will be labeled as having "poor ability to withstand stress", and they will not be eligible for promotion or salary increase in the future; 22% of people have experienced EAP consultants leaking visitor information to HR. "I told him that I wanted to leave, and HR talked to me the next day. Who dares to go again?" I also encountered something even more outrageous in the past two years. A Pearl River Delta manufacturing factory set up the EAP consultation check-in point at the entrance of the cafeteria, and those who went had to scan the code to receive small gifts, which is equivalent to writing "I have psychological problems" directly on their faces. Only 3 people signed up for the project in 3 months. It is not surprising at all.

Nowadays, there are two completely different ideas in academic circles regarding intervention on mental health in the workplace, and they have been arguing for almost 10 years. One group is the "individual adjustment group", which advocates providing employees with mindfulness training, emotion management classes, and teaching them how to relieve stress. Nowadays, many large companies include them in their employee benefits. Meditation rooms, sleep cabins, and free mindfulness classes are all products of this idea. But the opposition is also very sharp. Last year, Associate Professor Chen from the Department of Psychology of East China Normal University published a paper that directly refuted this logical problem: "There is obviously a problem with the company's management mechanism, so why should employees adjust their mentality to adapt? 996 is unreasonable. If you don't change 996, you will teach employees how not to be anxious during 996. Isn't this a disguised form of PUA?"

The other group is the "organization optimization group", which advocates applying management rules, such as canceling meaningless weekly and daily reports, clarifying the boundaries of rights and responsibilities of each position, and not allowing work messages to be sent after get off work hours except in emergencies. Among the 17 companies in our survey that have made similar adjustments, half a year later, the detection rate of employees' mental health risks has dropped by 18 percentage points, and the turnover rate has also dropped by nearly 10%. The results are real. But the boss of a small and medium-sized enterprise also has something to say: "We are engaged in foreign trade, and our customers are in the United States. We have to go to work in the middle of the night. I can't tell my customers to wait until I get to work before communicating with them, right? The general environment is like this. I have to ensure that the company survives before I can talk about the emotions of employees." This is not unreasonable. In many cases, it is not who is bad, but each of them has different positions.

Last year, I helped a small cross-border e-commerce company in Shenzhen make a plan. I didn’t build any fancy EAP, nor did I ask my boss to directly cancel the night docking. I discussed two small rules with him: First, colleagues who worked at night could arrive 3 hours late the next day, which does not count as attendance; With just two adjustments that didn't cost a penny, the voluntary employee turnover rate dropped by 7% at the end of the quarter. Several employees said that they no longer have to stare at their phones at all times recently and can sleep more peacefully.

Oh, by the way, there is another data that is completely different from everyone’s stereotype: Many people think that fresh graduates who have just graduated have a glassy heart and have the most psychological problems? In our survey, the highest detection rate was found among middle-level managers aged 30-35, accounting for 52.8%. Above them, they have to carry out the boss’s KPIs, and below they have to coax the post-95s and post-00s subordinates who have ideas. In the middle, there is also the pressure of mortgage and car loans for children to go to school. Even the collapse has to happen in the 10 minutes while driving home from get off work. It is a real "workplace sandwich".

In fact, after doing workplace psychology projects for so many years, my biggest feeling is that there is never a perfect solution to this matter. There is no need to force employees to "be positive" or bosses to "be philanthropists". We all work in a big environment and can take a small step from each other's perspective. For example, leaders should ask less, "Why can everyone else work overtime but you can't?" Employees should not hold back their emotions and talk to professionals when they feel really uncomfortable. It is much more useful than giving 10 formalistic mental health lectures.