We recently warned about the increase of labor complaints in the Brazilian Labor Courts requesting the recognition of psychological illnesses as a work-related disease, essentially in regards to burnout, anxiety attacks and depression due to supposed unattainable goals, work-related harassment and stress.
This warning becomes even more necessary after the update of the list of work-related illnesses made by the Brazilian Ministry of Health at the end of November, with the inclusion of mental disorders such as burnout, depression and anxiety to the list.
According to the new list, these psychological illnesses could be related to the employee’s exposure to the following risk factors: “organizational management; and/or context of work organization; and/or characteristic of social relationships at work; and/or content of job tasks; and/or condition of the work environment; and/or person-task interaction; and/or working hours; and/or violence and moral/sexual harassment at work; discrimination” and even “unemployment”.
The changes are a warning to companies and require the immediate adoption of 5 priority actions to mitigate risks, namely:
1. Creation and dissemination of reporting channels, with the guarantee of confidentiality of the whistleblower and followed by careful investigation by the company;
2. Preparation and dissemination of good practice material to combat harassment in the workplace, carrying out training and awareness campaigns;
3. Improvement of people management practices, with courses, leadership training and awareness campaigns;
4. Be careful when establishing and demanding targets, as well as creating an uncomplicated and transparent target program, where possible, exchanging them for incentive policies, with the aim of stimulating employees and not demanding them;
5. Pay extra attention in cases of illness reports, certificates and/or absences of employees with psychological illnesses.
These measures do not prevent the risk from rising, but they help the companies to prepare and have defense mechanisms in case it materializes.
