Comprehensive Analysis: Developing Workplace Mental Health Programs

This report provides a detailed analysis of mental health and wellness programs in the workplace, examining components, activities, and cultural considerations within organizations like Manulife. It explores Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) and discusses the effectiveness of these programs. The report further delves into the development of a workplace mental health program, identifying team members, goals, key needs, target audiences, and program activities. It emphasizes the importance of cultural components and outlines methods for evaluating program effectiveness, aiming to improve employee satisfaction and productivity through comprehensive mental health support. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments for students.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORK PLACE
MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORK PLACE
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1MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORK PLACE
Part 1
The components that you would typically find in a mental health and wellness program.
The various components that can be found in a mental health and wellness program are as
follows.
a. Awareness about mental wellness- After the mental health assessment of the patients
have been conducted, the employees must be provided with coaching and information
about their own status of mental health, and what are the possible actions that they may
take in order to reduce the present mental health hazards in the employees. This is one of
the most common components of mental health programs in work places.
b. Behavioral therapy- Regular counselling and behavioral therapy of the employees
induces positivity in them, helping them to overcome the existing challenges that reduce
their productivity and cause depression or anxiety.
c. Self-care programs- The employees in this process are encouraged to take decisions on
their own, and manage their own happiness. The awareness program of the employees
will help them to know about the requirements of being mentally fit.
Briefly describe the components of the organizations you researched
The company researched in this paper is Manulife. It is a financial organization that deals
with insurance, and other financial services. It is one of the largest companies in the region. It
has more than 34000 permanent employees and 63000 agents. Therefore, it is natural, that to
support and retain such huge number of employees that company must provide mental wellness
programs, and it is one of the most well-known companies to do so. The company has declared a
partnership with “Excellence Canada” which will act as “Champion of Excellence for Mental

2MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORK PLACE
Health at Work”. The company has stated that it completely gives importance to the fact that
good mental health is one of the most important aspects for being productive (Manulife.com,
2018).
What kind of programs and activities were involved/offered?
The company has partnered with one of the famous organizations of Canada that works
towards improving the mental health condition of the employees throughout the country. The
company has taken steps to include experts and psychologists who would be doing regular
mental health assessment of the employees, and provide counseling for the employees for whom
it is required. The employees are given training about the needs of a person to be mentally happy
and sound, and regular awareness programs are conducted by the company in this regards. “The
benefits that these programs aim to provide include driving down absenteeism, long-term
disability, drug costs and diseases caused or aggravated by psychological illness, to name a few”
according to the company.
Information about their EAP programs and referrals
Employee Assistance Program or EAP include the activities which a company takes up in
order to solve the problems in the personal life of the employees, to reduce their mental stress
and to help them in overcoming financial, marital and other emotional problems that may include
family problems as well. Human resource of a company is the resource which is most valuable to
a company, also it is one of the most demanding and complicated resources that is available with
the company. Therefore, the companies take extra care in making sure that the employee
retention rate is high and the employees are satisfied and happy in their job so that more
productivity is achieved. Manulife has several health benefit and family care programs for its

3MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORK PLACE
employees. The families of the employees also get benefitted by such programs. Apart from that
there are expert psychologists who are always ready to help the employees who are going
through emotional crisis.
How were cultural considerations factored into the programs, if at all
The company is supportive of cultural diversity and encourages workforce diversity
through its management processes. Cultural diversity is required to bring more ideas into the
system and innovations will naturally flow in. Innovation will lead to more productive
transformations within the company.
Manulife is a culturally diverse company, and also it operates in various parts of the
world including Asian countries. In the HR process of the company there are considerations
about the cultural differences, and the HR team constitutes of culturally diverse people. The
management is strict about any kind of cultural discriminations and strict actions are taken if any
kind of such behaviors from any employees are seen.
Include any information about gender-specific or sexual orientation-specific components
The company has specific programs that is aimed at women. “Diversity and inclusion is
an important part of our culture at Manulife and one of the groups actively promoting this is
Women@Manulife. Women@Manulife is a grassroots organization that promotes advancement
of women within Manulife at a personal and professional level” This is the company’s official
statement about supporting the women at its work place (Manulife.com, 2018). The company is
inclusive and there is no discrimination towards people of any sexual orientation or choice.
How effective were these programs? Are there statistics or research outcomes? How did
they measure the effectiveness, if at all?

4MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORK PLACE
The company has not published any specific statistics about the effectiveness of the
above mentioned programs. However, the company website claims that the programs have
helped in employee retention and employee satisfaction. The company has delved deep into the
aspect of the needs of the employees in terms of mental health and wellness, and then developed
programs that will cater to the needs of the individual employees. The gender specific programs
and inclusive nature of the manege3ment processes has helped t5he company in ideation and
expansion in new geographical boundaries across the globe.

5MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORK PLACE
References:
Manulife.com. (2018). Manulife re-enforces its Commitment to Mental Health at Work <br />
Extends National Partnership with Excellence Canada. Manulife.com. Retrieved 28
March 2018, from http://www.manulife.com/Master-Article-Detail?
content_id=a0Q5000000NlwKREAZ&ocmsLang=en_US
Manulife.com. (2018). Women@Manulife. Manulife.com. Retrieved 28 March 2018, from
http://www.manulife.com/Master-Article-Detail?
content_id=a0Q5000000IfkL8EAJ&ocmsLang=en_US

6MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORK PLACE
Part 2
Who would you want to be on the development team? Why?
If I am made the person responsible for the development of the mental wellness of the employees
of the company, I would like to include the highest authorities in the process apart from the
experts in the field of psychology. The highest authorities of the company must understand the
present status of mental health of the employees in order to develop management processes that
is required for dealing with any problems that might be there. The expert psychologists will
assess the mental health of the employees and develop report cards according to that the report
cards will then be used in order to develop programs and procvesse4s in order to take care of the
mental health problems of the individual employees.
What are the goals and outcomes you would like the program to achieve?
The primary goal that I would like to achieve is a better performance from the employees
and that can only be achieved if the employees are mentally satisfied. It is proven by various
researches done in then field of employee satisfaction and productivity that satisfied employees
are more likely to give better productivity and better quality work than their counterparts who are
mentally not satisfied about the job conditions (Abraham, 2012). The main goal is to increase
employee satisfaction through counselling and providing them with the best infrastructure and
work conditions that is possible in such conditions. The highest management will be responsible
for bringing the changes that are required to make the employees happier.
How will you identify the key needs and expectations of the program?

7MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORK PLACE
The program will be designed after there will; be detailed assessment of the employees of
the organization. The employees will not only be asse4sed by the experts in the field of
psychology at workplace but the employees will also be interviewed about what they think is
necessary to bring betterment in their performance in the workplace., Their expectations and
their needs will be assessed and the two opinions of the employees themselves and the experts
will be studied carefully in order to bring in the final components that are toi be included in the
program.
Who will be your target audience?
The target audience will include every member of the human resource of the company.
However5 they will be divided according to their special needs and mentality. Examples in this
regards are; women can be separately taken care of as their need are different than their male
counterparts. The LGBT employees can be taken as a separate group as well as they often face
discrimination in the workplace and that needs to be taken care of in the most effective way
possible. Therefore, all the members of the employee force will be the target audience. However,
they will be grouped according to their needs.
Describe the types of activities and components that will be included in this program
As already discussed above the first activity will be to asses the present mental health of
the employees and the requirements will be set according to that. The assessment will decide the
nature of the program. Then the program will have counselling of the employees with the experts
who will counsel and even prescribe medication to the employees if there is a need. For example,
is an employee is deprived of sleep that employee can be prescribed by the expert to have
sleeping pills. There will be sessions and workshops held on various aspects of mental health that

8MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORK PLACE
will enlighten the employees about the subject and they can even go for self-management of their
mental health.
How will they be delivered? Would this be a one-time program or a program that has
components delivered throughout the year
The program would be going on throughout the year as the company is having thousands
of employees and when a particular employee may be affected by a particular mental health issue
cannot be foretold. There will be regular sessions, regular health checkups and regular
counselling sessions. There will be a separate department called the workplace mental wellness
department within the Human Resource department that will have yearlong monitoring on the
individual employees to see.
How will you include a cultural component to your program?
The program will include cultural education for the employees that will enable them to
learn about cultural diversity and how to support cultural diversity in the workplace. The various
cultural groups within the organization can be put into discussion about each other’s cultural
knowledge that will enhance the exchange of ideas and cultural growth.
How will you evaluate the effectiveness of this program?
Key performance indicators will be developed in order to keep a track about the
effectiveness of the program. There will be indicators about employee satisfaction, rtetention,
productivity, concentration and quality. It will be monitored that these aspects are improving
because of the program or not.

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Reference:
Abraham, S. (2012). Job Satisfaction as an Antecedent to Employee Engagement. SIES Journal
of Management, 8(2).