PETALING JAYA: Mental health issues of late have been in the spotlight. The Covid-19 pandemic is no help and has further exacerbated the situation. Various promotions and campaigns have been rolled out to raise awareness, with counselling sessions to assist those affected on the rise.

       Mental health includes one’s emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Realising the importance of this phenomenon to its staff and the agency as a whole, media and advertising agency Mediabrands Malaysia have embarked on various initiatives to ensure mental health and well-being remain one of its top priorities.

       Its CEO Bala Pomaleh, in an interview, told StarBiz that the agency places a strong emphasis on supporting the physical, mental, emotional, and financial well-being of its staff.

       When looking at the agency’s well-being culture, he said the stance has been a proactive one, looking to address any vulnerabilities to employees and loved ones.

       “Our aim is to create a safe workplace environment that encourages everyone to be open and to ask for help when they are experiencing difficulties.

       “Covid-19 has raised numerous concerns around mental health and reinforced how vital it is that we facilitate conversations and raise awareness around these issues.

       “For us, it is important to see the synergy between performance and purpose, and as a result, over the past year, we have placed additional emphasis on four specific areas,” he added.

       These areas focus on strengthening employee happiness and connectivity, providing an integrated approach to working from home, shining a light on mental well-being and diversity, equity and inclusivity (DEI) matters.

       In terms of strengthening employee happiness and connectivity, Bala said while the agency has all the tools at its disposal to remain connected, the bonds that are formed in-person are hard to replace.

       Over the past year, he said Mediabrands has strengthened efforts on one of its core values – collaboration through trust.

       By keeping employees happy and engaged, he added it would increase collaboration, creativity and provide meaningful growth for them.

       With a healthy working environment and showing personal support to employees, the agency hopes to increase employee productivity and mitigate the effects of burnout, he noted.

       “Our industry is known to be a “pressure cooker” and yet mental health issues are still not widely talked about. We will focus our efforts to raise more awareness, engagement, and tools to help our employees manage their daily emotional challenges,” he noted.

       He said the agency has worked out a well-thought-out blueprint on local DEI goals to solve some of the things that affect its culture and to imprint these values within the DNA of Mediabrands.

       These goals include a commitment to equality, fairness, removing bias and embracing all of society to shape the fabric of the organisation.

       Elaborating on the initiatives to promote mental health and well-being in the organisation, Bala said its holistic wellness programme is designed around the mind, body and wallet. He said the idea is that no one part of the equation should be neglected, as they each contribute greatly towards the overall mental health, energy, and performance of employees.

       To promote mental health awareness, the agency has constant engagement through relevant messaging and internal communications, wellness nuggets and infographics, as well as internal talks across a broad range of topics. The topics range from how to spot burnout, and remote support of teams and to managing stress levels.

       Wellness nuggets refers to a small way to help one move out of languishing and closer to overall well-being.

       These talks and resources are provided through the agency’s global employee assist programme, and via the support of local NGOs such as the Malaysian Mental Health Association.

       Alongside these talks, this year, Bala said Mediabrands has launched a series of virtual activities for employees. These activities range across a wide spectrum of interests – coffee appreciation, brush calligraphy, growing a terrarium, baking and hydroponics to name a few.

       These workshops run every two weeks, and participants receive an at-home-kit with all the items needed to participate in the workshop. Feedback from these sessions have been positive, as it provides them with an opportunity to destress, and meet colleagues from different agencies who they might not normally interact with.

       All of which fosters better bonds and builds on our collaborative spirit, he added.

       As part of the agency’s LiveWell programme, Bala said employees are provided access to virtual or phone counselling sessions free of charge. This service is provided through a local panel counselling centre with full anonymity, with the service extended to employees’ family members living under the same roof.

       “From comments shared by managers, this service is very much appreciated as it serves the needs of employees in need, and takes the financial burden off them.

       “The link between performance and fitness has been well documented. During the lockdown period, we continued to promote the benefits of fitness and well-being through sharing tips on simple desk exercises, healthy eating and workshops on meditation and yoga to drive fitness at home.

       “To address the “wallet” pillar, regular financial literacy talks are conducted to help employees plan for their future, learn more about investments, retirement planning, share tax tips and gain information on financial protection tools.

       “Financial security is an important aspect to emotional health and well-being, and these resources are provided as constant support to employees every quarter,” he said.

       As an added incentive this year, and in recognition of the efforts of employees through a particularly challenging year, Mediabrands has also provided all employees an additional five days of leave to be taken as a “recharge and refresh” leave in 2021.

       The agency’s stance is that every employee deserves to take some time away from work to get into an optimal headspace and come back rested and mentally stronger to increase productivity in the long-term, he noted.

       Commenting on the agency’s future plans, Bala said Mediabrands has been actively evaluating its working models and structure.

       Following months of research and feedback from all the teams, he said it has aligned on a hybrid model for the way the agency works known as “Better Way”. This is designed and aligned along four core pillars: Care, Career, Clients and Community.

       Next year, it would launch the hybrid way forward model where employees would spend 50% of time in the office, and 50% working from home.

       Bala added: “The aim is to support employees by giving them the flexibility to work from home, while facilitating a comfortable and safe working environment at the office and improving overall productivity.

       “It is important to stress that conversations around mental health and wellness are extremely important. This year, in recognition of World Mental Health Day, we launched a Mental Health Week, which is a week-long programme to raise awareness and destigmatise the issues, share information on meditation and stress relief, and provide support on self-care.“ “Our hope is for more leaders and organisations to acknowledge the importance of mental health and encourage people to open up on their struggles so they may get help from the resources available,” he said.