Relationship troubles, work pressure: Top mental health concerns for techies

Mental wellness is a neglected subject in India but is slowly gaining attention from all sectors. Especially, corporate wellness is something that is gaining traction. Stress and anxiety levels of corporate employees have increased in recent years owing to the Covid-induced uncertainties, layoffs and other related matters. In this context, there are many companies, which are helping corporate houses to design employee wellness initiatives to keep their staffers fit. YourDOST is one such organisation, which is working with several big corporate houses in India. In a conversation with the Bizz Buzz, its Co-Founder & COO, Puneet Manuja said that stress level of corporate employees is increasing. The company works with several corporate houses, colleges and even government institutions to design, develop and execute multiple employee wellness initiatives. It has designed several categories of wellness programmes to suit the requirements of clients. In the coming years, the company plans to scale up its corporate business in order to grow faster.

Mental wellness is a big issue in the current society. Can you provide some view on what was the motivation behind entering into the mental wellness space?

We started as a company in 2015 and will be completing 10-years next year. As an idea, I and my co-founder, Richa (Singh) were working on this theme from 2011. We started it because of personal reasons. I completed my engineering from NIT, Calicut. I was a gold medallist in Computer Science. Despite being a gold medallist and having such a good profile, I didn’t get a job during campus placements. That was the most difficult phase of my life. I came from a very humble background and not getting a job despite being good at academics gave me the feeling that I might not be good at anything. I and Richa both started our career in Hyderabad. There I came to know that one of Richa’ friends had taken her life as she thought she might not get a job. I could connect to that. Then, we both thought that we should do something about it.

Then, we started it as a blog and then in 2015, we launched it as a formal platform. So, we have a passion to solve this problem. Our Prime Minister says we should aim to be a developed nation by 2047, and that is only possible if all our populace perform their best. Therefore, mental health is a very significant part for performing at optimum level.

What kind of mental health issues usually tech employees face? YourDost has a marquee client list and you work with several IT services companies in India. Can you throw some light on the mental health issues faced by tech workers?

We see average stress level of corporate employees increasing. As far as data from our survey is concerned, we see 30-35 per cent of mental health issues arises from relationship issues among corporate employees. A significant part of employees reach out for these issues. Second issue is related to work-related stress. Third is the self-improvement-related issues. These are the three issues for which tech workers usually seek help.

Relationship issues mean partner relationships or romantic relationships that people face. In the recent past, we have interviewed employees wherein both husband-wife are working and employees wherein one of them is a homemaker. If both husband and wife are working and both are in stressful jobs, then after returning home, doing household chores is difficult. It is very difficult to maintain a proper work-life balance. So, we see personal conflicts coming up in these kinds of situations. It happens for individuals both pre-marriage and post-marriage.

Can you elaborate what kind of work-related issues employees usually face?

Usually, work-related issues are related to work-life balance. Suppose after work from home, an employee is asked to come to office. Then, he or she has to redo his/her life. In IT companies, there have been changes in the work model. Whether it is AI, or Covid pandemic or other issues, there has been changes in the way these workers operate. Therefore, there is a lot of stress because people think that if I lose my job. Especially, people at senior levels have received a good salary during the Covid pandemic and it is difficult for them to find a similar job at that kind of salary brackets. A lot of those people are already in the market looking for a job which pay them similar level of salary. Some of them took a salary hit as they are the only bread earners of their families. Also, layoffs in the tech sector are resulting into anxieties and other mental stress. The other stress arises because of peer-related pressure, relationship with superiors and others. These are the broad areas for which stress appears.

When do corporates engage YourDOST as a wellness partner? Do they want you as a partner for all times or is it done during difficult times like layoffs?

Usually, there are two types of companies. There are companies, which are aware of the problem and reach out to us to solve that problem. Second is corporates engage us to create a roadmap for employee wellness. So, there are companies, which may be laying off their staffers, may seek our help to do it in a better way. In the second case, a company might have done an internal survey and realised that employee engagement is a big problem. So, we have designed programmes for each of these problems. For instance, we have a layoff problem, which help companies to do such things responsibly. Similarly, we have a programme which help in employee engagement. In this, we help corporates to create an inclusive environment for staffers.

We also do culture audits of companies by surveying the companies. This helps us understand where the company stands in terms of employee wellness. Post this audit, we share our reports and recommend programmes for mental wellness.

Can you give some colour about your team? Do you engage professionals to gauge the employee wellness?

In number term, psychologists are the biggest. Technology helps us in filling up the gap. But the programme is created by professionals like psychologists. We have around 1,000 psychologists in our panel now. Our clients are spread across 23 states. Our chief psychologist is Dr Jini K Gopinath.

He is a reputed professional with more than 2 decades of experience. He used to be the performance coach of Mumbai Indians. We have a very good team of professionals, which help people to make their lives better. Overall, our team size is around 200 now.

Can you throw some light on your client base? How has been the journey so far?

So far, we have served more than 500 clients. We have been profitable since 2019 and we are earning profits since then. Our corporate business has done well. From less than 20, now we have more than 200 clients in the corporate space. We plan to scale this business up in the coming years.