Strengthening Mental Wellness at the Workplace

Mr Speaker, Sir, the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the fragility and importance of mental wellness at the workplace. Workplace stressors, such as increased work demands, evolving work processes and blurred work-life boundaries became more pronounced. When not adequately managed, we witnessed how these work stressors eroded employee productivity and motivation, and negatively affected workplace mental wellness.

It can be said that the pandemic marked a watershed moment in our fight for better workplace mental wellness. The pandemic revealed cracks in our workplaces and gave employers the impetus to build organisational resilience. It is heartening that there are some employers in both the public and private sectors who have heeded the call to improve workplace mental wellness. Employers want to do more. Let us build on this momentum to support employers.

As of 2021, only about 47% of Singapore employers provide mental wellness benefits, compared to over 80% in the US. According to reports, this lower level of employer engagement is a result of cost constraints, lack of awareness of mental wellness resources and scepticism about the returns of workplace mental wellness interventions.

To enable our employers to overcome these barriers, I believe that the Government can step up its efforts to increase the awareness of mental health resources and support employers in implementing better workplace mental health policies and practices, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

First, I will lay out the economic case for better workplace mental wellness. According to the Mental Health Toolkit for Employers published by the National Council of Social Services (NCSS), every $1 invested in workplace adjustments generates an average return of $5.60, reduces average annual medical expenses by 13.3% and increases the average yearly income per person by 6.5%. Retraining and hiring costs are also reduced, which averages to about $3,650 per employee in Singapore.

These benefits were echoed by many business leaders at the CNA Leadership Summit 2022, who underscored tangible returns like increased productivity and higher employee retention after investing in mental well-being interventions.

Making an economic case for mental wellness at the workplace is crucial when seeking support from investors, shareholders and Government agencies, especially when it comes to financing mental health support. Hence, equipping employers with tools to measure outcomes of mental wellness investments, benchmarking with industry standards and recognition in the form of awards will help employers seek buy-in and support from stakeholders.

In this regard, I would like to ask that the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC) include this important area in their new framework around Corporate Purpose for the recently-launched new Company of Good programme. A Company of Good in Singapore must take care of their people in the workplace. So, when NVPC recognises them with this award, this can create positive ripple effects for corporate action on their priorities.

Upon establishing the case for workplace mental wellness intervention, the natural question that follows is: how should we go about taking action? In the following part of my speech, I will lay out a roadmap for implementing workplace mental wellness interventions.

Before I proceed further, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to members of the Young People's Action Party (YP) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) Health and Well-being team for their contributions to the following recommendations.

The first step in any organisation's mental wellness journey is to assess the state of their employees' mental health regularly. This can be achieved using a workplace mental health assessment tool. I must stress that the confidentiality of the results from each employee's mental health assessment should be upheld at all costs. Employers should only receive an aggregated set of results to identify workplace stressors and track changes in overall workplace mental wellness over time.

At present, employers can utilise the iWorkHealth tool, an online, self-administered psychosocial health assessment tool for companies and their employees. It was developed by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM)'s Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Institute, in partnership with the WSH Council, Institute of Mental Health (IMH), Changi General Hospital (CGH) and Health Promotion Board (HPB).

The tool provides employees with a survey questionnaire that covers stress-related factors in the workplace including job demands, job control, job recognition, organisation culture and relationships with supervisors and co-workers. Upon completing this survey, employers will receive an aggregated anonymised department and company report identifying key workplace stressors, extent of workplace stress and the overall state of the mental well-being of their employees. Participating employees will receive individual reports on their mental well-being scores and workplace stressors.

To illustrate the usefulness of workplace mental health assessments, I would like to share a real-life case study that came up in my conversation with an employer. After completing the assessment, the employer received aggregated data that showed that teams with higher manager-to-staff ratios had higher stresses and anxiety levels compared to teams with lower manager-to-staff ratios. With this information, the employer inferred that managers who have larger teams had fewer opportunities to check in with their staff and offer mentorship and support. This might have translated into higher levels of stress and anxiety among their staff.

To address this issue, the employer proceeded to transition into a more hierarchical organisational structure that allowed for the formation of smaller teams, according to more clearly delineated management levels and job scopes. With lower manager-to-staff ratios, this allowed for more intra-team engagement. In the next round of workplace mental health assessment, the employer noted lower workplace stress and anxiety levels, suggesting the positive effects of the restructuring exercise. This case study highlights the value of the data gathered from workplace mental health assessments. As illustrated, the data can direct recalibration of company policies and structures and concretely improve workplace mental wellness.

At this point, I would like to ask the Minister for Manpower for an update on the iWorkHealth tool since its implementation. What is the present take-up rate of the iWorkHealth tool among organisations and what adoption targets have MOM laid out? With the Government being the largest employer in Singapore, what percentage of Government Ministries and Statutory Boards have adopted the iWorkhealth tool? Additionally, what other plans does the Ministry have to enhance the effectiveness and capabilities of the tool?

To further signal the importance of workplace mental wellness assessments, I propose that Enterprise SG grants, such as the Enterprise Development Grant and the Productivity Solutions Grant, include a survey on employees' well-being before and after the implementation of a project to measure potential improvement of employees' wellness, in addition to employees' value-added gains. This will ensure that any company transformation takes into account the human wellness element to ensure better sustainability of outcomes. This also signals to employers the importance of well-being and that, in turn, goes hand-in-hand with any transformation.

We will also need to incentivise and recognise employers. I propose that one way to incentivise adoption can be to acknowledge companies who have integrated it into their workflow at the Annual Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) awards hosted by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).

As a proactive intervention, the workplace mental health assessment aligns with the wider Healthier SG strategy of preventive healthcare. Proactive mental health interventions have been proven to generate a higher return on investments compared to reactive mental health interventions. A 2021 survey by Deloitte among UK companies revealed that the highest rate of returns from employer mental health interventions came from screening, with a return of £6.3 for every £1 invested. Other proactive mental health interventions, like awareness training and managers' training, also generated high returns of £5.3 and £6 respectively for every £1 invested.

In contrast, reactive mental health interventions, like workplace counselling for employees generated lower returns of £3.1 for every £1 invested. In the spirit of a whole-of-Government approach to preventive healthcare, may I also clarify if MOM has shared aggregated data gathered from the iWorkHealth tool with other Government agencies, so that they too can recalibrate policies to better respond to emerging trends from the workplace?

Upon assessing the mental health of employees and identifying workplace stressors, the next step is for employers to develop a strategy to support employees' mental well-being. It is important for employers to go beyond a single programme to combat workplace mental health issues, since the positive effects of these initiatives are often limited to the objectives of that programme. Instead, a workplace mental health integrated strategy can synchronise efforts across the organisation. This results in a more unified, holistic, structured and sustainable approach towards improving workplace mental health.

An example of a comprehensive and pioneering workplace mental health strategy that other organisations can take inspiration from is the WellNUS Workplace Mental Health Framework, designed by the Health and Well-being team at NUS.

The WellNUS Workplace Mental Health Framework systematically maps out the different parts of an employee's well-being journey and identifies the key relevant initiatives and key stakeholders to provide support. The framework aims to support employees at every stage along the mental health spectrum from well states to states that may benefit from intervention and to recovery and back-to-work transition stages.

Presently, the WSH Council has launched a playbook on workplace mental well-being. It provides employers with a guide on how to devise their own workplace mental wellness strategy by breaking it down into outcomes, targets and how-tos. However, there is room for it to be more robust, by considering mental well-being along a spectrum and proposing interventions that target different states of mental health.

In addition, interventions that can be undertaken by different levels of staff, senior leaders, human resources (HR), Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) and so on, and of different natures – culture and strategy, systems, infrastructure, support services and resources – should be included as well. I would like to propose that MOM continue enhancing this guide, so that employers can better apply it when formulating their workplace mental wellness strategy, along with regular mental wellness assessments.

Once a mental wellness strategy has been devised, interventions can then be implemented. But the question that follows is – who will be tasked to put these interventions into place?

While establishing a health and wellness team might not always be a viable solution for SMEs with leaner teams and tighter wellness budgets, a cost-effective alternative can be to broaden the job scope of current HR managers, teams or other relevant managers to include workplace mental well-being.

Incorporating well-being interventions into HR systems signals that mental health is not a tangential concern but an organisational priority. Such a reframing of mental wellness in the workplace is necessary for real change to happen.

I must emphasise that reconceptualising the role of HR is not meant to increase the workload of our already saturated HR managers. Instead, it is to bring our HR systems up to speed with the growing needs of our workforce.

Hence, it would be helpful to arrive at a collective definition of the additional skillsets required of HR teams or relevant personnel to support workplace mental well-being.

Based on our consultations with existing well-being managers, these skillsets include knowledge in organisational psychology, corporate policy development and designing evidence-based health and well-being corporate programmes.

Given the specificity and interdisciplinary nature of skillsets required to support workplace mental well-being, there is a shortage of people who can fill these positions and we need to do more to bridge this skills gap.

Before I proceed with my recommendations on bridging the skills gap, I acknowledge that not all companies have the capacity to upskill their HR managers or incorporate new responsibilities into their job scopes. This might be more prevalent in micro enterprises.

In such cases, can we think of outsourcing this work to a central intermediary so that more similarly sized companies can lean on it? For larger SMEs, would a tax incentive be enough to upskill relevant individuals in the company?

During the MOM Committee of Supply debate in 2022, I called for MOM to consider offering CHRO-as-a-service similar to IMDA's CTO-as-a-service. Such measures are necessary to bring all our SMEs up to speed rather than only those who can afford mental wellness interventions.

For companies that are willing and able to address the skills gap, I would like to call for SkillsFuture to push for new Continuing Education and Training (CET) courses. These courses can be introduced in a tiered fashion, with tier 1 being peer support training, directed at all employees and Tier 2 being managerial training, directed at those in leadership positions, with more extensive structural discussions on organisational structure and workplace culture.

During peer support training, employees can be trained to notice distress signals from colleagues, direct colleagues to the appropriate mental health services and resources and provide psychological first aid.

The NUS Health and Well-being team, for instance, has launched an NUS Peer Support System that provides a two-day training programme for peer supporters. After the training, NUS peer supporters meet quarterly to check in with one another.

They will also be given the opportunity to participate in elective modules to refresh and enhance their peer support skills. The goal is to have around 30% of the NUS workforce trained in peer support skills to have a critical mass to push for cultural change.

Managerial training should encompass peer support training in addition to other aspects that capitalise on managers' proximity and frequency of interactions with employees. Managerial training can include more in-depth discussions on organisational structure, shaping a mentally healthy workplace culture and cultivating stronger networks of connection between a manager and the staff.

After training, there should be regular check-ins and a framework as well so that there is follow-through for the training provided.

A notable example is the Young NTUC WSQ-certified training in peer-to-peer mental wellbeing support at workplaces. Learning circles comprising individuals who have completed the peer-to-peer training serve as a regular check-in and forum to share lived experiences and best practices at various workplaces.

A suggestion to expand on our call for managerial training is to create specific modules for SME business owners. Such modules take into account the unique context of SMEs and work closely with trade associations to curate the course content and co-delivery.

As it is often said, "it is lonely at the top." SME employers can feel isolated. Hence, working with trade associations on the co-delivery of such training programmes can also create organic opportunities where employers provide employer-peer support and check-ins.

Even with frameworks and training programmes, some employers and managers might still require more customised and sustained guidance when implementing mental wellness interventions.

One possible solution might be for Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) providers to go beyond counselling services and include consultancy services for employers and managers.

Consultancy resources are especially crucial for SMEs that might still be building up their health and well-being capabilities. Consultants will guide employers in making sense of the aggregated data derived from mental health assessments and work with employers to devise a workplace mental health strategy.

I propose that the Government offer funding packages to assist EAP providers in offering consultancy services.

To harness economies of scale and build depth of services, Government funding can be channelled to a smaller pool of organisations instead of being spread more thinly across multiple EAP providers. Focusing on a smaller pool of EAP providers who meet the required standards will also make it easier to ensure that consultancy and counselling services are delivered consistently, with quality.

Mr Speaker, Sir, over the course of the pandemic, we have witnessed the reframing of mental wellness in the workplace from a "nice-to-have" to a critical business imperative. The normalisation of workplace mental wellness struggles has catalysed a shift in company cultures and employers' perceptions surrounding mental well-being.

We are now presented with a golden opportunity which will determine the state of workplace mental wellness in the future. Hence, we need to be intentional in entrenching mental wellness as an organisational priority and sustaining growing wellness policies and programmes.

In this Motion, I have laid out six key processes to achieve these goals. Our employers can and want to take the lead in this pursuit.

Hence, I call on the Government to: (a) harmonise the existing resources in a one-stop shop for employers; (b) signal the importance of regular workplace well-being screening by scaling up the adoption of the iWorkHealth tool; (c) expand the Mental Health Framework for employers that systematically maps out the different parts of an employee's well-being journey and identifies the relevant initiatives and key stakeholders to provide support; (d) expand HR systems in-house or as a service to include skillsets that directly enhance workplace well-being; (e) scale up training programmes for employers and employees on peer support, organisational structure, workplace culture and regular check-ins; and (f) expand EAP services to include consultancy on workplace well-being transformation.

Mr Speaker, Sir, every employer and employee has the power to be a force for good and wellness. Let us walk this journey together and empower them.