We spend a third of our lives in the workplace, so it’s important to get the workplace right. As Christians we know the ideal workplace would be fashioned after God’s own work and instructions about work. God created, delighted in His work, and rested. He delegated the ongoing work of stewarding creation to humans to carry it out amicably together.
Unfortunately, the Fall changed things. God’s prediction of work becoming drudgery has come true. Few remember the creation mandate – to work together with other men and women to care for creation, to keep it beautiful and flourishing. Few teach the other instructions Scripture adds: to work with all of one’s heart (Col. 3: 24) with all of one’s might (Ecc. 9:10), working even without hope of praise or reward, seeing work as serving Christ, not an earthly master (Col. 3: 22-24), working wisely, thoughtfully, planning ahead (Prov. 6:6-11), to provide for one’s family and others (I Tim. 5:4-8). The shalom and flourishing, of good mental and physical health for people and environment, has been lost.
The current scenario is one of humungous workloads, long working hours, stressed and competitive people struggling to meet unachievable targets – often at the cost of their own physical and mental health. The death of young Anna Sebastian, caused by a heart attack after such a period of stress at Ernst and Young, turned the spotlight on the terrible work culture of big organisations.
Some workplace problems causing mental distress are systemic – unreasonable targets and deadlines, huge workloads, inadequacy of staff, increasingly complex internal procedures and government regulations, the fear of legal repercussions, ease of phone and e-mail communications creating overflooded inboxes and stretchable work-hours, individualized annual performance reviews pitting anxious colleagues against each other. Other sources of stress are relationship issues – competing colleagues reacting with non-co-operation, working in silos, one-upmanship, stealing credit; abusive, discriminatory, or demanding bosses; sexual harassment in various forms. Finally, there are personal causes of mental distress, to which anyone may succumb: those with poor support systems or history being more susceptible.
The reasons underlying these are the generally widespread focus on profits or economic gain as the benchmark of a person’s, organisation’s or even a country’s success, resulting in unreasonable targets, impossible deadlines and never-ending work-hours for the foot-soldiers of each group; poor feedback or communication from the ground to senior levels possibly because of the fear of being seen as inefficient, incapable or unfit for the job; also a lack of empathy for juniors from middle level leaders – having gone through their own phase of stressful grunt work, they wear it as a badge of honour. Even Human Resource (HR) professionals are sometimes unable to change this workplace culture and function as the executive’s arm. All this results in a tendency to treat employees with a jarring lack of concern. They are dispensable; encouraged to adjust to the work culture or leave.
As Christians we see that the root problem in the workplace is sin and selfishness. It has caused wrong attitudes and reasons for work, extracted all the joy, co-operation and service from work, pitted people against each other in a continuous and pointless striving to be better, richer, and more powerful than each other. The whole system has hurt many, and left them mentally stressed, bruised, battered or in some sad cases, dead.
We await the Lord’s return for the perfect solution to workplace sin. In the meantime, all levels of leadership in organisations can change to make things better.
Senior leaders must orchestrate a paradigm shift of their goals. Profits and economic gain simply cannot be the main raison d’etre of organisations. Goals more pleasing to God may include achieving excellence, developing new ideas, providing service. These need periodic review to reaffirm balance between profits leading to self-reliance and the human tendency to greed, with its inevitable toll on the mental health of staff.
Seniors can encourage active participation in goal-setting, which is known to keep ground staff motivated and happy, and in the long-term, is good for the organization. The alternative method of pushing targets from top down, causes burn-out and frustration in staff.
Middle level leaders and HR professionals can do a great deal to promote good mental health, if they see themselves as placed there to serve God first, and then the organization. They need courage, tact and wisdom to give correct feedback to superiors about mistakes, bad practices, unachievable goals so that staff can function efficiently and happily.
They need to establish practices fostering employee well-being, including them in target-setting, encouraging employee-friendly practices, team building activities, family -friendly times and spaces; discouraging excessively long work-hours; checking on performance at work, relationships, even their mood, presence of addictions and so on; giving feedback gently but early; taking feedback, assuring anonymity, whistle-blower policies, committees to check sexual harassment complaints, fair systems of redressal. They should encourage a mental health check as part of annual medical check-ups; for a stressed worker, suggest a mental health consultation before giving a bad performance review. This will remove the stigma and normalize mental health reviews as part of good health practices – a change sorely needed in India, today.
Employees themselves should correct their attitude to work, as a God-given source of human flourishing, working hard, enjoying their work, interspersed with adequate rest. Excessive competition, striving for praise, success, promotions or wealth –these by-products should never be the focus. Unlearning faulty attitudes is essential to preserve calm in today’s competitive, ruthless workplaces.
If employees are still stressed, not sleeping well, irritable, abusing substances – these are warning signs of worsening mental and physical health. Impulsively resigning, however, can worsen stress exposing them to taunts or reprimands. Getting professional mental health assessment early may be sufficient to help them cope. Changing jobs should be done thoughtfully, carefully, preferably after getting a new job, to prevent further stress.
To conclude, society and each level of work management needs to urgently bring changes in the increasingly difficult work scene, before more young lives are destroyed. The Christian viewpoint provides a God-centered view that work is for service and common flourishing, not personal gain or profit. Giving employees more voice in their goals and targets, prioritizing employee friendly practices even at some cost, and removing the stigma to discussing and handling mental health issues, will in the long-term lead to a healthier and more productive workplace.
Dr. Jamila Koshy is a psychiatrist by practice. She has contributed to many books and journals. Her books include “Side by Side” (SAIACS Press), “Talking Families”, “Should I Care?” (ISPCK, Delhi). She is also a Board member of TRACI.