Almost 50 per cent employees faced either depression or anxiety related symptoms, finds study

Bengaluru: The ekincare, an AI-integrated, full stack health and well-being benefits platform for employees and organizations, shared that only 46 per cent of employees are aware of their existing workplace mental health resources. However, this percentage increases to 66 per cent when individuals get diagnosed with mental health symptoms and need to avail existing solutions to address them. Around 60 per cent cited depression, 55 per cent emotional and 50 per cent irritability, insomnia or anxiety related symptoms. The data also reveals other alarming trends on employees suffering from hypertension, diabetes and high-cholesterol. The insight is based on ekincare's database of over 2 million employees on its platform leveraging health and well-being benefits sponsored by corporates of all sizes and gathered during the last year. Health has always been a secondary priority at the workplace and today, the industry is grappling with mental health issues in their employee base. Majority of the workforce in organizations are not fully aware of the existing resources available to tackle signs such as depression, emotional, irritability, insomnia or anxiety during the initial stages. Additionally, it is also noticed, from the employees who are aware of the existing resources are not availing the sponsored benefits.

Other alarming trends from the ekincare platform revealed that 28 per cent of employees are suffering from hypertension, 22 per cent are suffering from diabetes and 28 per cent from high cholesterol. The data further revealed that men are 50 per cent more likely to have chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and high blood cholesterol than women. While ekincare recently announced Free Mental Health Counselling Sessions for up to 6-months for corporates of all employee sizes on World Mental Health Day, October 10th to introduce and sustain mental well-being initiatives.

The CEO and Co-founder of ekincare, Kiran Kalakuntla mentioned that "Diagnosis and treatment of mental health cannot be treated in silos. Creating awareness about the existing workplace resources for treating mental health is imperative for any organization first, followed by consistent engagement to hold true to the promise of a work environment that values mental well-being. This enables early detection and immediate treatment thus leading to more productivity. We help organizations drive 4x more adoption of employee health and well-being benefits through our enterprise-ready platform. It is crucial for companies to treat the mental health of their employees seriously to enable a happier workplace."