Workplace Mental Health White Paper

There is currently no universal mental health standard that can cover all people in the workplace. After nearly 10 years of practical verification by academics, corporate EAP (employee assistance program) practitioners, and clinical psychological counselors, a more practical solution than "crying to lie flat" or "beating the chicken blood" is a dual-track assessment system of "prioritizing job suitability + clear boundaries of emotional rights and responsibilities". 72% of mild to moderate workplace psychological distress can be significantly relieved by adjusting these two dimensions without taking medicine or making explicit remarks.

Let me tell you a true story that I encountered when I was working as an EAP resident at a leading Internet company in 2022. A little girl in the operation position graduated from 985 Xinchuan. Her KPI ranked in the top 20% of the department six months after joining the company. She was a potential stock in the eyes of the leadership. In private, she hid in the fire escape two or three times a week and cried. She went to the hospital and was diagnosed with moderate anxiety. It took three chats to find out the root cause: She was originally applying for a content creation position, but when she joined the job, there was a shortage of people in the commercialization department, so she was temporarily transferred to do brand docking. Her daily job was to eat with customers, change the slogan that customers thought of 800 times, and deal with more than a dozen departments for a little conversion data. Excuse me - she has a highly sensitive and creative personality. This kind of position that requires a lot of emotional labor is less than 30% suitable for her. No matter how much she practices mindfulness or emotional review, it is useless. Later, she was transferred internally to the content team, and her anxiety score dropped to the normal range in less than two months.

Interestingly, academic circles have been arguing about the root causes of workplace psychological problems for almost ten years. One school is the individual-oriented clinical psychology school, which believes that the core of most problems is the individual's insufficient ability to regulate emotions. Methods such as mindfulness meditation, cognitive behavioral modification, and regular emotional review have been proven to be effective in reducing anxiety levels. ； The other school is the organizational behavior school, which directly accuses the former of "passing the blame for capital" - it is obviously a problem of the company's mismatched positions, ineffective overtime, unclear rights and responsibilities, and PUA culture. Why should employees adjust their mentality? Both sides are reasonable. Among the cases I have come across, some people survived the busy season of projects by meditating for 10 minutes a day, while others were squeezed into depression after adjusting their mentality three times. Finally, they changed jobs and immediately recovered. No one is right or wrong. It just depends on which solution is suitable for your current situation.

I often tell people who come for consultation that if you are temporarily unable to change jobs or transfer positions, the first thing you need to do is clarify the boundaries of emotional rights and responsibilities. Last week, a friend who worked as an auditor at one of the Big Four complained to me. The leader sent a WeChat message at 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, "There seems to be something wrong with the report you submitted last week." He opened his eyes until three o'clock, and his mind was filled with "Am I going to be optimized?" You see, this is a typical example of taking responsibility for other people's emotions onto oneself - the leader casually said "there seems to be a problem", but he sent the message without understanding the seriousness of the problem. Why should you pay for his vague expression? The first practical tip I give to all my clients is to ask three questions in your mind when receiving work news after get off work: “Does this matter have to be resolved today? Is this within my scope of authority? Can I afford the worst consequences? 」As long as the answer to one of the three questions is no, just leave the message and deal with it at work the next day. Personal testing can reduce unnecessary night anxiety by 60%.

A 2023 survey conducted by the Department of Psychology of Peking University and the EAP Center of 12 leading domestic companies showed that nearly 70% of workplace psychological distress is not essentially a problem of ability, but a mismatch between personality traits and job requirements. For example, asking people with high empathy to be the last-place elimination system HR who hires people every day, asking social fear to be BD who needs to visit customers every day, and asking people with strong logical thinking but insensitive to emotions to handle user complaints are essentially asking Zhang Fei to do embroidery, and no matter how he adjusts his mentality, it will be useless. If you have been working in the same position for more than half a year and still feel physiological nausea before going to work every day and have tried various adjustments but it still doesn't work, don't doubt yourself. It is most likely not your problem. Changing a suitable position is better than anything else.

Of course, some people must say that standing and talking does not hurt your back. The current environment is so bad, how can you just change it? There is also a saying that is very popular on the Internet, "Naked resignation cured my mental internal friction." I also have to remind everyone: We have counted cases in the past 3 years, and the happiness within 3 months after the naked resignation will indeed increase significantly. However, if there is no clear next step plan, the incidence rate of psychological problems for people who have resigned for more than 6 months is 32% higher than when they were working. Lying at home every day, you will still be overwhelmed by the self-doubt of "Am I useless?" There is really no need to blindly follow the trend of naked resignation. If you can't leave for the time being, it's not shameful to learn some "workplace survival skills." Last year, I met a little girl who worked in administration. She recorded her boss's PUA remarks every day, and listened to her complaints with her best friends on the way home from get off work. After half a year, her anxiety has not increased, but her ability to complain has improved a lot, and it is also a very good emotional outlet.

Oh, by the way, this white paper does not include any clauses that require you to "be positive" or "emotionally stable". You can secretly scold your boss when you are fishing at work, go to eat spicy hot pot and drink two glasses of cold beer after get off work, or even hide and cry for half an hour when you are stressed. As long as it does not affect others, these are completely reasonable ways to vent your emotions. To put it bluntly, the workplace is a place where you exchange time for money. There is really no need to tie all your emotional value to that KPI, right?