Adecco Training develops an unprecedented Training Plan with the objective of supporting the leaders of organizations in the preventive and promotional activities of the mental health and well-being of their teams
A study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation reports that 10.7% of the world population lives with a mental illness along its path. This means that one in 10 people suffers from some condition, such as anxiety or depression.
The challenges of the pandemic have potentiated these occurrences, and have highlighted the importance of preventing and promoting mental health in companies: the deprivation of freedom to which people have been subjected reinforces situations of loneliness, anxiety, and stress, which were triggered by the measures of isolation and social distance essential for the protection and security of the population.
In January, Miguel Ricou, President of the Council of Clinical Psychology of the Portuguese Association of Psychologists, publicly anticipated having no doubts in predicting that the number of cases of people in psychological distress will increase in the context of a pandemic. In the first three months of the pandemic alone, according to data from Infarmed, 400 thousand more packages of anxiolytics and antidepressants were sold, than in the same period in 2019. Portugal is, according to the OECD, in the fifth place among the countries who consume that type of medication the most.
What consequence does this scenario bring to the world of work? Mental health problems can negatively affect individuals in all fields of life, including in the professional field: high stress, loss of productivity, turnover, burnout are some of the consequences that they may face. Depression reduces cognitive performance about 35% of the time that we perform a task. In 12% of cases, absenteeism is rooted in mental health problems.
With a good part of the active population working remotely, in a scenario of insecurity that is the ‘perfect storm’ for the worsening of psychological suffering, how can companies act preventively in relation to the well-being and mental health of their teams?
Based on this premise, Adecco Training created a plan designed to support leaders in the preventive performance of their team’s mental and physical health. “Mind Flow” is a cycle of five online workshops designed according to those that are your challenges and the opportunities of each company.
“Unfortunately, mental health is still a taboo, so few people feel comfortable being associated with this set of words and companies themselves can feel vulnerable and assume, too, that their employees need intervention in this context”, says Patrícia Andrade, responsible for Adecco Portugal’s Training unit. “However, if we define that mental health is a state of tidiness in our home, will we then be able to assume that there are unorganized divisions?”, Asks the official.
Thus, starting from the analogy of ‘housekeeping’, divided into five divisions: “How to Enhance Engagement”, “Mindfulness”, “Emotional Intelligence, Happiness in Life and Career”, and “Resilience & Coping Strategies”. Adecco Training has developed a flexible training plan, with a total of 22 hours, in which each company can build its route according to its needs. “Essentially, they are tools that aim to respond to the context we are living in and to promote conscious and intentional actions on mental health and well-being in the work environment, without which the ultimate goal is to reduce levels of stress, anxiety, turnover and absenteeism”, explains Patrícia Andrade.
How to promote the mental health of employees in the face of the challenges imposed by the pandemic? What actions are at your disposal to give support and support to the team? What can each employee do to keep their physical, mental, and emotional health stable? These are the responses that “Mind Flow” will give to the companies contracting this training plan that will support the ‘digital terrain’ teams in this paradigm shift that the pandemic has brought to the world of work.
