One of the challenges in dealing with mental breakdowns in Kenyan offices is ignorance. PHOTO | SHUTTERSTOCK
Across Kenya’s offices, there are hundreds of employees with mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Very few of these employees are receiving adequate psychiatric or psychological support care. Others have been sacked for being unproductive at work.
Many are victims of a workplace system not designed to meet their needs — and employers indifferent to their plight. Employers are keen to see results and corporate goals met and have neglected employees’ wellness.
But mental breakdown can no longer be swept under the rug because it is costing organisations millions of shillings in lost productivity and hospital bills.
Experts are now pushing for companies to set aside wellness budgets amid a rising increase in mental health conditions among employees.
Hard economic times, long working hours, high targets and family woes have pushed many Kenyan employees to a mental breakdown.
“Employers should have a policy, a budget and a framework that supports their well-being and that of their employees. Establishing a wellness budget is the biggest step, especially with senior management support, if you don’t have a budget, you can’t do much,” says Dr John Ong’ech, a company health adviser at Safaricom.
Early detection
Speaking at a mental health forum, Dr Ong’ech, who is also an obstetrics and gynaecology consultant, says organisations must have clear guidelines to ensure early detection of people at risk of mental breakdown.
“They should be able to know why employees are absent and also notice those under the influence of drugs, especially if there are cases of low concentration and poor work delivery,” he said.
Research shows a comprehensive, strategically designed investment in employees’ social, mental, and physical health pays off with reduced cases of hospitalisation or missing work.
One of the challenges in dealing with mental breakdowns in Kenyan offices is ignorance. Many employers do not know what to do.
John Ong’ech, an obstetrician and gynaecologist. PHOTO | POOL
“The focus should be on educating top management about mental health issues and how they occur, so that they can appreciate how mental health development occurs, and that they are now able to set parameters in the workplace that will meet the needs within that organisation,” says Prof Catherine Gachutha, the chairperson at Kenya Counselling Professionals Association.
The experts say knowing the stress triggers with a certain organisation helps in understanding how they can mentally affect the employees.
This helps come up with interventions that are promotional, preventive and curative for the good of the organisation.
Employees not dealing with mental health conditions significantly impact business costs.
“The work performance of employees who suffer from mental health issues is greatly affected. If they have depression, they won’t come to work. Any depressed employee will not even feel like waking up. They don’t have the energy, feel hopeless, and so they won’t even get up and be present,” says Prof Gachutha.
Kenya Counselling Professionals Association Chair Catherine Gachutha during the interview at Serena Hotel, Nairobi on December 5, 2023. PHOTO | LUCY WANJIRU | NMG
Employees who have an anxiety disorder cannot work well. If one is experiencing a psychotic episode, it is difficult to have a recollection of what work is. Whether it is in their cognition or not, the ability to use their thinking to understand and carry out tasks becomes difficult.
How can we improve mental well-being in the workplace?
Experts say there is a need for mental health ambassadors in workplaces.
The ambassadors will help identify employees with challenges since they work among themselves from the lowest ranking to the highest level.
Identifying these cases can now be passed to the wellness department for effective and helpful measures.
“Workplaces need to have a full-fledged wellness department, whether it’s referrals that need to be made to the doctors, counsellors that are already employed in the workplace or counsellors that are identified out there.
“Every workplace can start from where they are in terms of their finances and grow into a more full-fledged wellness department within an organisation,” says Prof Gachutha.
