Prevyman and mental health in the work environment

Where am I and what happened to me?

A few months ago, at a conference on psychosocial risk prevention, I met an old university classmate after whom we both focused our professional development towards occupational risk prevention.

This person had always had an excellent mood, but I noticed he was very worried and he confessed to me that he had gone to the congress in search of answers and guidance regarding the situation he was experiencing in his company. He is responsible for the prevention service of an industrial plant in the metal sector where 550 workers provide service.

My colleague is concerned about the occurrence of accidents, some serious, which is why he first classifies them as recklessness, but by analyzing facts and situations he is coming to the conclusion that something else underlies some of these accidents and he is beginning to be concerned about the psychosocial risks in his company and, specifically, aspects derived from the mental health of the workers. He tells me that he had never paid enough attention to this aspect as he had focused more on risks related to occupational safety and industrial hygiene.

You have asked me for help and I decide to visit you to focus on your problem and study a specific case that gives us clues on how to improve the situation and address a global approach.

What means does the company have to avoid this situation?

During the visit I made to my colleague's company, he told me about a case that he considered very significant since it involved a work-related accident at the plant with material and personal damage whose underlying cause was a mental health problem.

As usually happens in these cases, the worker is reluctant to share his problem because he himself has stigmatized it and is afraid to share it because of what his colleagues may think about him. Finally, it is possible to create a climate of trust with the worker that makes him explain himself and show how he feels emotionally, something that, on the other hand, he seemed to be eager to do.

This is a worker who has confessed that he is going through a depression that he attributes mainly to circumstances related to his work. He says he is exposed to very high and continuous stress over time, in addition to a workload that is most of the time impossible for him to bear. As if that were not enough, he considers that his job entails high responsibility and little tolerance for error, which is why this stress increases and he has also never received recognition from his bosses for the work he does, quite the opposite, which has led him to feel great frustration.

He tells us that the few close people with whom he has shared his problem do not give it importance and he feels that they do not empathize with him, they even tell him that “he has no major problems in his life to have depression, that he has a job and 'lives very well.'" This makes him withdraw more into himself and feel even more misunderstood.

The worker has so far not wanted to put himself in the hands of a psychologist, because he never thought he would go through a situation like this and he also has the preconceived idea that only unbalanced people come to a psychologist, he even says of himself that he is not crazy to receive psychological help. All this means that the problem, far from being overcome, is getting worse little by little and it is becoming increasingly difficult for him to lead a semi-normal life and even go to work every day, since he has already missed more days of work this year than in the previous 10.

The situation you are going through is taking its toll on you. He was an committed and exhaustive worker with his work, but a few months ago everything has started to change and his performance is beginning to suffer. The one who until now was an impeccable professional begins to be questioned, the relationship with his bosses and colleagues also deteriorates and they comment that "he does not seem the same as before", he has even lost that leadership that characterized him. 

In the personal environment, things are not much better either. Lwho was previously a person that everyone considered affable and with people skills, has become an apathetic, introverted person who finds it increasingly difficult to go out with friends or maintain contact with people he has known for a long time. years.

A couple of months ago he started self-medicating with benzodiazepines and tranquilizers that make you feel better (momentarily) but they have a significant impact on driving and handling work equipment such as, for example, the overhead crane that you must use daily in your work. Although he has received information from the company about the dangers of driving and operating machinery under the effects of adverse medications, in this sense, the depression has also made him change his perception of risk and he does not give importance to driving under the effects of the medications he is taking, even though he has already had some scares behind the wheel due to staying asleep.

The situation reached rock bottom when an accident occurred when a poorly secured load fell off the overhead crane that the worker was operating. The investigation of the accident determined that the main cause of the accident was the fact that the worker's sensory and concentration abilities were diminished by the effects of the tranquilizers he was taking without any medical prescription. The accident caused material damage and minor damage to the leg of a worker on whom part of said load has fallen and which caused him to be off work for several days.

The overall result of this meeting held with the worker is very positive because for my colleague, as the company's ORP manager, the conversation has helped him realize that in recent times he has been too busy with the bureaucratic part of the ORP without paying attention to really talking about job security with the workers, without receiving feedback from middle managers who perhaps could have warned him about the emotional situation in which the worker found himself.And for the worker himself, the conversation serves as a turning point, having shared the problem he is going through has 'freed' him and he finally decides to put himself in the hands of a psychologist and at the same time do internal work to return to being the person he was before this stage.

Based on all this, my colleague, together with the company's management, decides to implement the following plan to promote the emotional well-being of the company's workers:

• Carry out from scratch a psychosocial risk assessment in the plant that is much more complete and in-depth than the one they had done up to that point, gthanks to which it has been possible to detect the red points on which it is necessary to act more urgently and establish a plan of measures that are born with the commitment to adopt the measures that are necessary by the company's management, including shortcuts and solve certain cases of mobbing detected and reorganize tasks to reduce the workload suffered by certain positions. 
• It was decided to carry out a complete re-organization of the company structure, optimizing processes and tasks to reduce the workload of certain jobs that appeared as 'moderate risk' in the psychosocial risk assessment, expanding the workforce in those positions. workers.
• From the Training Department, training on human team management is planned for middle managers, in order to improve the way they relate to their team members.
• The company decides to implement a work-life balance plan that includes measures such as the rationalization of working hours, teleworking and flexible hours.
• A system for evaluating the performance of each worker is established, rigorous and objective, in such a way that allows the worker to receive recognition for their work.
• A workplace harassment prevention committee is launched whose objective is to avoid possible situations of inappropriate behavior that may occur in companies as well as to assess the measures to be applied in the event that a case occurs.
• In parallel and with the collaboration of the Human Resources department, the company decides to firmly commit to the emotional well-being of its workers by implementing actions such as mindfulness workshops, stress management workshops, work-life balance plans or the possibility of having access to a psychological consultation subsidized by the company.
• As a complement to the above, it has been decided to implement posters linked to aspects of psychosocial risk as well as send periodic awareness messages to each worker in this regard with the aim of making these visible. problems.

What results have been obtained?    

12 months have passed since the implementation of these measures and I decide to visit the company again to see first-hand how this matter has evolved, although I am aware that these are issues that require much more time to observe substantial changes.

First of all, gthanks to carrying out a much more in-depth and exhaustive psychosocial risk assessment than the one that existed before, aspects have been detected on which action must be taken more urgently and a plan has been established that is born with the commitment to adopt the necessary measures by the Company's Management. Among them, stopping and solving certain cases of mobbing detected and reorganizing tasks to reduce the workload suffered by certain positions as well as firmly committed to emotional well-being. 

The Human Resources Department has carried out a new work environment study that has yielded significantly better results than those carried out 2 years ago.

Since the implementation of these measures and the new workplace harassment protocol, no more cases of workplace harassment have been recorded, although the protocol has been activated on one occasion.

The absenteeism rate has been reduced by 12% in relation to the previous semester and by 14.2% in the same period of the previous year.

The worker with whom we started the action is coming out of depression thanks to the psychological help he decided to receive and is now beginning to be the person that everyone knew. Now he uses his own experience to help other colleagues who may be going through a similar situation, trying to make mental health problems visible and destigmatize them. 

And remember... “any resemblance to reality is NOT pure match”