Dubai: If you’re trying to cope with loneliness, there’s a chance your employer is ready to help you.
In the contemporary business world of today it is being addressed more frequently, according to Human Resources professionals.
Understanding how mental illnesses and mental health can affect employee productivity has sparked employers to provide the necessary resources.
Gulf News reader Ali Al Aradi is a Bahraini human resource development lecturer and writer based in Manama, Bahrain and he said: “Since employees are the engine of an organisation that moves it forward, it is important to help them get over feelings of loneliness, otherwise [the company] will be faced with high turnover rates and low productivity due to low satisfaction and engagement level.”
According to World Factbook, the population of the UAE was around 9.2 million in 2015 with nearly 85 per cent of that consisting of expatriates.
This means that there is a strong likelihood of having employees with family in other countries.
Taqleed Reyaz, an Indian expatriate in Abu Dhabi, has been working in Human Resources in various companies in the country for several years.
Reyaz said: “It would differ from company to company how involved they would be in helping an employee with loneliness… It is directly related to productivity and with today’s corporate world, it is normal to address these issues.”
Loneliness being felt within the workplace as well as personally is, on some level, monitored and preventative measures are often initiated through integration and group activities.
Friendly corporate culture
Ali Al Aradi said: “Organisations are responsible [for creating a] friendly corporate culture based on trust, where each employee is able to see their role in a big family picture and that can be by adopting vertical integration through aligning an employee’s objectives to the organisation’s objectives.
“Secondly, adopting the horizontal integration by building teams that are working together to achieve one objective, where each member in the team recognises the benefits of each other in developing creative solutions. It’s important to have employees take time to see each other as human beings – no nationality, no religion, no gender, just brothers and sisters from a global family working for the same organisation.”
Taqleed Reyaz also saw the benefit in group activities and participating in recreation outside the office to manage mental health and loneliness.
To help employees on a personal level, companies will tackle this from different extents.
Reyaz said: “Some do take care to watch out for symptoms. In that case, an employee’s case would be sent to a team to refer to a specialist.”
