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Workplace Stress Anxiety Depression

The workplace should be a significant source of positive experiences boosting our self-esteem, sense of accomplishment, and professional growth.  For many, this is the case.

However, there is a growing number of people (both employees and leaders) who suffer with mental health problems, primarily depression and anxiety.

The World Health Organization estimates that lost productivity to mental illness costs $1 trillion per year to the global economy.

A recent development in this area is burnout which has been classified as an occupational phenomenon due to stress, disengagement, cynicism, fatigue, and other typical toxic work environment factors.

In this post, I'd like to highlight some things companies do that may not be apparent to the professional environment but most definitely contributes to the increase of mental health issues in the workplace.

I think we would decrease a significant amount of mental illness if we just cut out the mixed messages.  Here are a few examples.

job posts set up for failure  - 'work/life balance', 'ability to handle pressure', 'multi-tasking'
interestingly, my twitter post on this got a lot of views with this image that I got from a random job post (but found it very common)


empty 'leadership' talk - big words like vision, mission, strategy, and plan do not mean a thing unless they are put into action and directly affect people's lives

bad/lacking managers - companies allow substandard managers in key (or any) positions
subject matter expertise, large number of contacts/connections, success in previous companies, credentials, and the likes DO NOT make a person a good manager

euphemism -  team-player (you just have to deal with people), multi-tasking (you can't drop the ball), self-starter (you are on your own)

More to come...


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