Contents of the White Paper on Mental Health in the Workplace

The detection rate of mental health abnormalities (including anxiety, depressive tendencies, job burnout, etc.) among domestic workplace workers is 42.7%. Nearly 60% of the problem triggers are not the traditional perception of "more overtime and heavy tasks", but hidden workplace pressures such as unequal rights and responsibilities, meaningless internal friction. At the same time, the effective coverage rate of existing psychological support services in enterprises is less than 15%, and the emotional problems of the vast majority of workplace workers are in a state of "no one cares about, dare not talk about, and will not neglect".

When I was working as an HRBP at a leading e-commerce company in Hangzhou the year before last, I met a 32-year-old operations team leader who followed up on the 618 and 99 sales for three consecutive months. At first, he just complained that he couldn't sleep well. Later, his hands shook when he went to work for a week in a row. He went to the hospital to check that he was suffering from moderate anxiety. When he talked to me, he said that he was really not afraid of working overtime. He had been used to it for five or six years in this industry. What was worrying was that every time something went wrong during a big promotion, their operations team was responsible. The increase in sales was due to accurate market placement and a strong supply chain. Every time he held cross-department meetings to evaluate his merits, he was always the one who stood up and got scolded. He did the most work and could not get an S for performance. Who wouldn't panic if he replaced him?

It's interesting to say that last year I talked with Mr. Zhang, who studies occupational health in the Department of Psychology of Beijing Normal University, and found that their academic circles are actually divided into two groups in terms of solutions to this type of problem, and no one can convince the other. One group is the structural group, which believes that the root of the problem lies in corporate management. As long as the boundaries of authority and responsibilities are clearly drawn, meaningless weekly and daily reports are cancelled, and work messages are prohibited from being sent during non-working hours, most of the problems can be solved. ； The other school is the individual school. Many career planning consultants also hold this view. They believe that the rules of the workplace cannot be changed in a short time. Ordinary people have to establish their own boundaries. For example, they should turn off work notices after get off work, and directly refuse work that does not belong to them. Don't be a soft persimmon.

In fact, both of these statements are correct, but they also have their flaws. You want a start-up company with dozens of people to clearly delineate rights and responsibilities? One person is supposed to work as three people. Today he is doing operations and tomorrow he may be helping to screen resumes. How is it possible to completely draw a line? Are you saying that ordinary people should completely refuse extra work? When your boss asks you to help change the plan in the group chat, can you really say "This is not my job and I won't do it"? Most people still have to bite the bullet and take it.

I came into contact with a SaaS startup company that provides enterprise services last year. Instead of providing those fancy EAP (Employee Assistance Program) services, they made two small adjustments: One is that all cross-department collaboration tasks must be approved in the project management system, and it is clear who is in charge, who is responsible for problems, and how credit is calculated.； The other is that except for the exclusive group for emergency operation and maintenance, all other work groups are automatically banned after 9 pm. If anyone sends private messages to employees to arrange non-urgent work, employees can directly take screenshots and complain to HR, and the manager's performance will be deducted twice with one warning. After implementing these two simple rules for half a year, their voluntary turnover rate dropped by 18%, and the abnormality rate in employee psychological assessment dropped directly from 38% to 21%. It is much more useful than the vain EAP service purchased for hundreds of thousands.

Of course, some people will say, what should I do if I am not so lucky to meet such a reasonable company? You can't just say it naked, right? There are really many people around me who have figured out their own little tricks. I once met a young girl who worked in To B sales. She created a small ritual of "emotional trash basket". Before leaving the company every day, she would spend 10 minutes writing down all the bad things that happened that day, the grievances she was scolded by customers, and the blame she was blamed for by the boss on a sticky note. After writing, she would tear it up and throw it into the trash can downstairs. This is equivalent to leaving all the emotions at work in the company and not taking them home. Don't tell me, this method sounds silly. She persisted for half a year. When I saw her last time, she said that she would no longer lie in bed tossing and turning until two or three o'clock because of work.

Oh, by the way, I have to mention something special here. Do not regard psychological problems as "hypocrisy" or "overthinking". If you have suffered from insomnia, loss of appetite, and no interest in anything for more than two consecutive weeks, you must go to the psychiatric department of a regular hospital in time. Consultation should be done, and medicine should be taken. Don't bear it. It is really not worth it.

In fact, after reading the entire white paper, you will find that there is no universal solution. After all, the rules of each industry are different, each company's management style is different, and everyone's ability to withstand pressure is also different. To put it bluntly, the workplace is only a part of your life, not all of it. The evaluation given by your boss and the number of KPIs cannot define your value as a person. Once you understand this, many things will actually become less worrying.