Helping a friend who is struggling with emotional issue
Job stress could be due to emotional, physical, social, economic or other factors sometimes related to uncertainty in the employment situation, especially in this fast-paced and disruptive work environment.
How do you help a friend who is facing job stress?
Have you ever felt the need to help a friend who is struggling with emotional issues? A situation where you start noticing a change in your friend’s behaviour and you start to realise that there is something more than what meets the eye. Not sure if you should tell him or ignore it?
These are some genuine concerns that anyone could have when faced with this kind of situations.
Mental Health at workplace matters. When employees are happy, happiness and productivity thrive. An argument with your boss can spill over and have an impact on your personal time. A small fight at home can ruin your workday. Concerns over kids academics and behaviour can have an impact on your overall outlook. Organisations have started realising these facts and are slowly taking some initiatives on employee assistance programs which are highly beneficial to employees. But,
- Are they really utilising it?
- Does the employee know why they should use it?
- Are they using it because the company asked them to do?
Many of these questions arise in our mind. All these confusing questions should be clarified and the solutions identified must align with the vision and mission of the organisation. Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is introduced in organisations in order to help the employees and people associated with it. As we all know, it is really important to consider mental health as important as physical health. We need to support co-workers who struggle with emotional issues.
At the same time, there are companies who don’t have a good idea about these EAP programs. They think of it as a cost factor and does not give the necessary importance it deserves. Some always find it difficult to justify the money spent on these wellness programs. If a few employees are suffering, they even consider replacing them with others. But, is that a fair solution? Replacing an employee may be easy, but it impacts the trust and belonging of other employees and churn is always expensive for the organisation.
A happy employee has a major role in an organisation. A happy employee not only takes care of themselves but also imparts a multiplier effect by boosting the morale of the whole team. It is very important for an employer to make sure an employee maintain a healthy balance between his work life and personal life. An employer has the responsibility to promote these wellness programs to their employees, which really help them to focus on the job. Absenteeism, low self-esteem, lack of concentration, poor decision making, low productivity, etc are the after-effects of poor mental wellbeing at the workplace. Encourage your employees to give importance and take care of their mental health so as to reduce job stress. Let them know that there is nothing wrong with asking for help when needed.
Job stress, job insecurity, prolonged work hours, performance issues, relationship problems with colleagues, work-family conflict, etc triggers mental stress and leads to illnesses at the workplace. EAP helps to build a secure channel for managing organisational issues professionally with the help of experts.
Unfortunately, our work culture is such that it is generally focussed on high productivity levels in order to increase profits. What is going to increase this productivity is not usually a matter of concern. If a company has an EAP, that will be a good place to start. It is going to help the employee better cope with their emotional issues that is bothering them and begin to help to improve their work performance.
eYogi.in is an Online Counselling platform where you could share your thoughts/feelings with a trained Counsellor. eYogi.in uses online or telephonic medium to connect to a psychologist/counsellor. Once an appointment is booked online, you will automatically get an incoming call from our number which will subsequently connect to the counsellor.