Workplace Mental Health Indicators

There is currently no absolutely unified quantitative standard in the industry to determine whether people in the workplace are in a healthy psychological state. The mainstream consensus is that it can be cross-validated around the three core dimensions of "state self-consistency", "functional integrity" and "emotional resilience", rather than relying on a single "will you get emotional" and "whether you can work overtime" to make a rough judgment.

Last week, when I was doing a quarterly EAP (employee assistance plan) screening for an Internet company, I met a girl who worked in operations in 1998. She worked for 11 consecutive days before the project was launched. The third party for docking made a mistake and linked the wrong event entrance. She cried for two hours in front of the entire department, then turned around and dragged her colleagues downstairs to eat butter hot pot, and also brought milk tea to colleagues who worked overtime. Someone wrote in the screening notes that she had "poor ability to withstand stress." I crossed out this sentence - her emotional response completely matched the difficulties she encountered. After crying, she should solve the problem and relax. On the contrary, she was in a very healthy state.

Interestingly, the judgments of indicators by different academic schools are quite different. Traditional clinical psychology schools pay more attention to "pathological warning signs": for example, insomnia and early awakening for more than two consecutive weeks, work efficiency plummeting to the point of being unable to complete basic tasks, and even social avoidance and generalized anxiety (clearly nothing specific has happened, but the hands are shaking all day long). As long as such symptoms occur, whether you think there is something wrong or not, it is recommended to seek professional intervention. However, the positive psychology-oriented evaluation system commonly used in enterprises today does not regard negative emotions as deduction points at all. Instead, it pays more attention to whether you have "room for self-regulation": even if you complain about your boss every day, as long as you can still work normally after complaining and find small ways to make yourself comfortable, even if you just spend 10 minutes watching cat videos, you are considered to be in good condition.

As an aside, I have seen many companies before using "whether you can accept overtime unconditionally" and "whether you can not fall out when scolded" as indicators of "mental health". To be honest, it's quite ridiculous. This is not a psychological evaluation at all, but a fig leaf for PUA in the workplace.

I have come across a typical counterexample: I contacted the sales director of a large factory at the beginning of last year. The whole company felt that he was a "mental ceiling". He could smile and pat his boss on his chest with a smile and promise to make up for his quarterly target difference of 40%. He did not get angry when his subordinates made mistakes. His performance throughout the year was all A's. As a result, he was found to be moderately depressed in the physical examination at the end of the year. He said that he had to sit in the garage for two hours every day after get off work before going upstairs. He didn't even have the strength to take out the keys and open the door to his house. He couldn't even taste the sauced pork ribs that he loved most before. This is a typical "functional integrity" that seems to be completely fine, even better than ordinary people, but the "state self-consistency" has long since collapsed - all his emotions were forcibly suppressed by himself, and there was no outlet at all. By the time the problem was discovered, it was already serious.

Speaking of this, some people may object: Entrepreneurs are under high pressure every day. Is it because they are mentally unhealthy? A few months ago, I was chatting with a founder of enterprise SaaS. He said that in the three months before the product was launched last year, he only slept 4 hours a day. He was so anxious that he was rejected by investors 27 times. He was so anxious that he scolded his subordinates in the office every day. Even his wife said that he was like a firecracker. But he knew very well that this state was short-term and had a clear end point. He would wait until the product went online and started generating revenue. Later, his product reached the top three in the segment. When I met him last month, he could take his baby to the countryside for camping on weekends. He was tanned and in excellent condition. This is actually the core of "emotional resilience": you know that the current bad state is temporary. After the stressor disappears, you can quickly return to the normal rhythm of life without being dragged down by that high-pressure experience.

In fact, the self-evaluation scales posted on the intranets of many companies have very limited reference value. Firstly, most people will deliberately conceal their negative status when filling it out, fearing that the company will label them as having a "bad mentality" which will affect their promotion. Secondly, formal psychological scales must be interpreted by professionals based on your actual status. A high score does not mean there is something wrong with it. I have been doing corporate EAP consulting for 5 years. To be honest, the most accurate indicator is not the scale score at all, but the small changes that you can detect yourself: for example, before you could hang out with friends after get off work, now you just want to lie down and ignore anyone. The three-point sugar iced American style that you loved to drink now tastes like bitter water. This continuous signal of "loss of pleasure" that lasts for more than two weeks is more accurate than any professional evaluation.

In fact, workplace mental health is not a standardized test, and there is no score line that must be met. Some people feel that working from 9 to 5 is the most comfortable, while some people feel that working on projects to achieve performance will give you a sense of accomplishment, and you don't need to set yourself up by other people's standards. After all, the purpose of going to work is to live a good life, not to give someone a "mental health standard" answer sheet, don't you think?