What can Companies do to Safeguard Mental Health of Employees?

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected many people and changed our lives in ways we never imagined. This global health crisis also affects people’s mental health. With the lockdown and ongoing restrictions such as social distancing and self-isolation, some employees are fearful about contracting the virus, others will be anxious about family and friends. Many will have suffered bereavements during this time, often without the chance to say goodbye or attend funerals. There will also be fears about job security, returning to the workplace (including using public transport for commuting) and financial concerns. Some employees are working longer or more irregular hours and many are combining work with other family responsibilities, leading to a poor work-life balance.

However, many people are not aware of their mental wellbeing even though mental health related absence is the most common cause of long-term sickness absence in workplaces. Poor mental health at work can lead to increased staff turnover, reduced engagement and high presenteeism. With the current pandemic situations, and the lockdowns and social distancing, it is very possible that these mental health implications will be felt for many months or even years. Having said that, not many people can be open about their mental health conditions, because it may lead them to being stigmatised, and other form of discriminations, especially in the workplace.

In addition to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is increasing concern about how to best protect the rights of workers during this time and ensure safe and healthy working conditions. Human resource management practices play a particularly important role in making the Indonesian labour market gender equal and inclusive. In fact, decisions and actions of HR professionals could open doors for disadvantaged groups of people to employment and allow them to utilize their skills fully. Building gender equal, non-discriminative, and inclusive workplaces starts with awareness of the HR professionals.

Against this backdrop, the United Nations initiates to implement a project “Employment and Livelihood: An Inclusive Approach to Economic Empowerment of Women & Vulnerable Populations in Indonesia”. The project is funded by the UN Multi-Partner Trust Funds (UN MPTF) and is implemented by four UN agencies: International Labour Organization (ILO), UN Development Programme (UNDP), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). This webinar series is one of the activities in the project.

The webinar series is in collaboration with the Ministry of Manpower, Association of Indonesian Employers (APINDO), Indonesia Business Coalition for Women Empowerment (IBCWE), and the National Movement for Competent Indonesia (Gerakan Nasional Indonesia Kompeten, GNIK). One of the topics is Mental Health: What can Companies do to Safeguard Mental Health of Employees?. In this topic, we would like to share good human resource management practices that enable mental health inclusion, promote gender equality, non-discrimination, and inclusiveness at workplaces, with the human resource directors, managers and practitioners as the target audience.

This webinar aims to raise awareness to HR managers/practitioners about mental health, by sharing experience, knowledge, and good practices. The audience will learn about why it is important to maintain the employees’ mental health, how to safeguard their mental health, mental health-related discriminations, avoiding biases, stigma, and unintended discriminations. By having the awareness, it is expected that the audience can make their workplaces to be more equal, non-discriminative, and inclusive for everyone.

This webinar will be having a radio talk show format with Smart FM radio network for the duration of 60 minutes in total (45 minutes effective). An indicative agenda is as follows:

Radio talk show and discussion (60 minute format)
0:00 – 0:05 Welcome and introduction of the topic and speakers by the radio host
0:05 – 0:15 Talk of the first speaker
0:15 – 0:20 Break
0:20 – 0:30 Talk of the second speaker
0:30 – 0:35 Break
0:35 – 0:45 Interactive discussion with the radio host
0:45 – 0:50 Break
0:50 – 0:57 Interactive discussion with the radio host
0:57 – 1:00 Closing by the radio host, introduction of the next session topic