It is common now for workplaces to have well-being packages for their staff. These range from the very modest to the very generous but include all kinds of things from access to apps and telephone counselling to yoga retreats and seminars from life coaches.
The motivation behind this kind of programme is laudable - the aim is to keep staff happy and healthy. But the need for a workplace wellbeing programme immediately implies that the workplace will detract from your happiness and damage you well-being. Sadly this is true in many cases, but it shouldn’t be.
Although the workplace is the source of many people’s unhappiness, employment should actually be beneficial to employees’ mental health. It is well known that being out of work is a risk factor for mental health problems from low level anxiety to severe depression and suicide. Work should, and often does, bring a sense of purpose and satisfaction that keeps people happy.
A well run workplace should in itself be a place that enhances well-being. The need for a well-being programme sets alarm bells ringing. It smacks of papering over the cracks. This is a way of helping people cope with stress, not a way of reducing that stress. It is arguably a way for employers to absolve themselves of the responsibility to keep their workplace functional, and to keep the workload of their employees manageable.
Unfortunately this is how we approach mental health as a society. Someone is depressed so we give them medication, give them cognitive behavioural therapy, and then toss them back into the life that made them depressed in the first place and hope that the tools we have given them make that life more bearable.
With regards to mental health, we are continually reactive and rarely pro-active. The work place well-being programme is another symptom of that reactivity. If employees are not happy then the source of that unhappiness should be addressed, they should not simply be taught how to live with it.