Mental Healthcare: Overlooked Recruitment Differentiator

Mental health has and continues to be, an afterthought for many organizations as they contend with market pressures, including digitalization, talent shortage and a forecasted recession. In contrast, companies that prioritized mental health through the COVID-19 pandemic have observed high retention rates, lower burnout rates and generally happier employees. Their success points to an overlooked market differentiator in a highly competitive labor market, according to industry experts.

“Given its established importance among millennials and generation z, access to digital and in-person mental health services stands to be an attractive contribution to companies’ value propositions,” said Moisés Flores, Senior Director HR Insights, Kantar.

Telehealth services played an important role in supporting the mental health of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, when in-person consultations were discouraged. Three years later, it is time to analyze the advantages and problems that have come from this modality to marry the best of these approaches in a post-COVID-19 reality. Clarification on the strengths and limitations of mental telehealth services will help organizations and health professionals define when collaborators should be deferred to seek professional, in-person consultations. Understanding this rule of thumb is imperative ahead of a forecasted economic recession which threatens to place additional economic, and therefore mental pressures on workers.

“All in all, a lack of response to the increasing demand for such services under the ‘new normality’ may bring a series of undesired consequences, ranging from regulatory fines to higher employee turnover and accident rates,” said Jorge Merida Puga, Director General, Wellbeing. 

“Economic and emotional stressors triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed the manifestation of mental health disorders including emotional distress, isolation, depression, anxiety and stress at elevated rates in Mexico,” said Edgar Rosas, Founding Partner, Centro de Liderazgo Emergente. By the end of 2021, these disorders had evolved and compounded, doubling the observed levels of depression and anxiety in Mexico, according to data analysis by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Furthermore, given the limited access to mental health services in Mexico, it is likely these figures will not reach their apex soon. Understanding that unaddressed mental health burdens contribute to higher suicide rates, employment and declined life expectancy are all important motivators to intervene and encourage the use of mental health services. 

In retrospect, mental telehealth services have outlined both positive and negative implications that can now be combined with in-person mental health services for a more holistic impact on patients. Yet despite the proliferation of digital mental health platforms, access to mental health services remains a major challenge, prompting the financial support of companies in facilitating access. Furthermore, the absence of direct physical examination of non-verbal cues has complicated the diagnosis process for professionals, according to BioMed Central Journal. However, this has been a tradeoff between the gained insight into a patient’s physical environment which can provide other important cues about their mental health. Lastly, mental health professionals have also pointed to concerns regarding a maintained therapeutic relationship, changes in engagements and expectations. 

Through Mexico’s NOM-035, Mexican employers are uniquely positioned to interject where health professionals cannot, placing an implicit social responsibility on organizations to communicate, support and direct collaborators struggling with mental health. This capacity requires organizations to consider mental health as an integral objective on behalf of the company. As a result, “this demands that organizations first conduct an internal assessment necessary to identify and mitigate risks, provide additional support to the most vulnerable departments. This will allow for the most efficient use of resources,” said Eduardo Amaya, HR Vice President, Centro Médico ABC. “By extension, it demands that executives, human resources directors and other organizational authorities be educated and informed on the subject so that they can transmit this value in practice,” said María Martha Gómez, Head of Human Resources and Administration, Telefónica.

The latter is fundamentally important in addressing often entrenched practices that contribute to toxic work cultures and feed mental health issues. In practice, it will require leaders and other authority figures to be mindful of work-life boundaries, support and transmit healthy company guidelines and nurture the capacity to identify signs of psychosocial risks. Furthermore, since these capacities cannot be developed overnight, companies should consider establishing a robust accountability review process so that talent management teams can address toxic workplace behaviors as they arise. Consequently, companies must be prepared to follow through on disciplinary measures and even contract termination for leaders or collaborators that contribute to toxic workplace behaviors, said Amaya. Reluctance to follow through on disciplinary measures jeopardizes collaborator confidence, the development of a healthy work environment, productivity and engenders other costs that will hurt the company in the long run.