On 5 March 2024, the Interreg-funded project "Mental Health Matters" brought together for the second time Estonian researchers, government representatives, service providers, associations and federations, occupational psychologists and representatives of training institutions to discuss the challenges and assessment of mental wellbeing in small businesses.
The discussion, chaired by Karin Reinhold, Associate Professor of Workplace Wellbeing Management at the Department of Business Administration, took place at TalTech and highlighted a number of important ideas.
One of the main conclusions was that employers will engage more with mental wellbeing issues if they have sufficient resources to do so, if there is a younger generation of employees who are more open to sharing mental health issues if the employee profile requires it, or if management has a high awareness of the issue and an intrinsic motivation to prioritise it.
Karin Reinhold says: "Unfortunately, Estonian companies are more concerned with mental health problems of employees than with maintaining mental health. Activities are reactive. We need to move towards prevention, which requires systemic action and more support from the state. Flexibility in the organisation of work and work design issues would keep the focus on organisational bottlenecks that employers can address and thereby reduce the personal responsibility of employees. It is certainly cheaper and more effective to prevent mental health problems, and we should talk about prevention in a positive sense.”
Overall, it was recognised that the availability of personalised support has improved over the years, but that organisational bottlenecks are still poorly addressed and that in the future companies should invest more in preventive measures and systemic solutions.
Read also: Mental Health Matters project launched under the leadership of Karin Reinhold (taltech.ee)