Indicators for Companies to Establish Mental Health Support System for Their Employees

Miss Cheryl Chan Wei Ling asked the Minister for Manpower (a) what are the indicators for companies to begin establishing mental health support system for their employees; and (b) for workers in SMEs, how can they be better supported on mental health concerns.

The tripartite partners have issued an advisory on Mental Well-Being at Workplaces to help employers identify and implement initiatives to support their employees’ mental well-being.

Most of the recommendations in the advisory can be adopted at little to no cost. For example, companies are already required to undertake risk assessment. The advisory advises them to incorporate mental well-being in these regular risk assessments. iWorkHealth is an online, self-administered psychosocial health assessment tool to identify common workplace stressors. It is provided free. Other recommendations such as encouraging more open and regular conversations on mental well-being and form informal support networks amongst employees likewise do not cost much to the company, but still giving due attention to employees’ mental well-being in the workplace.

In addition, the Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Council and Health Promotion Board (HPB) have outreach programmes that include mental well-being support. These too, are offered to SMEs free or at highly subsidised rates. Under the Total WSH Programme, providers work with companies to run interventions to address the safety and health gaps holistically, where mental well-being topics are included. Similarly, HPB’s Workplace Outreach Wellness (WOW) package includes mental well-being programmes that strengthen workplace support for employees and help employees manage stress as well as build mental resilience.

With the range of free or highly subsidised services, as well as the simplicity of the interventions themselves, there is really no reason for any firm, whether large or small, to wait for some metric or indicator of distress before attending to their employees’ mental wellness.