Building mental resilience critical to tackle WFH-led mental stressors

Building workers’ resilience is crucial amid a work-from-home arrangement, which has heightened mental stressors caused by the blurring of work and personal life, said Senior Minister of State for Manpower Zaqy Mohamad.

“Workers must take time to take care not just of their physical health, but also of their mental well-being,” he said, at the launch of this year’s National Workplace Safety and Health Campaign, according to The Straits Times. 

A new campaign on mental wellbeing will be held in September by healthcare institutions and agencies to share best practices on how to build workers’ mental resilience. 

In 2022, a tripartite award on mental wellbeing will also be rolled out next year to recognise individuals and businesses that have adopted exemplary practices. 

A poll commissioned by The Straits Times revealed that about one in three people felt that their mental health had worsened amid the pandemic. 

The poll of 1,000 people, held from March 25 to 29, revealed that 31% percent respondents eported that their mental health had “somewhat worsened”, while 5% said that it had worsened “much more”.

READ: Singapore launches tripartite standard for work-life balance

This comes as Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s education minister and co-chair of the country’s COVID-19 taskforce, called for employees to be allowed to work from home as much as possible, in the wake of a recent rise in COVID-19 cases in Singapore.