The Corporate Bubble
When Rahul stepped out of his 15th floor office in Lower Parel, 3rd of March, 2018, he was already carrying the instruments to end his life: a razor blade, a rope and three bottles of Tryca sleeping pills obtained illegally.
He stepped into his car, drove it straight to his apartment in Prabhadevi, locked himself in his bathroom and began to graze at his wrists with the razor. He had made the decision for the past two weeks. He had made arrangements: bank authorized to his wife, children's funds straightened out, no debts or credit card bills or any other pending matter.
Rahul was a high flying General Manager of a Fintech startup. He had won countless awards since 2015 for his role and was widely renowned as the mentor for the younger engineers and managers in his firm. He spoke at TedX and regularly went to motivate college students and young entrepreneurs. His marriage was perfect, his children were well behaved.
Yet, this brilliant man took the decision to end his life. A life millions would've been jealous of.
He felt his deadlines could not be ignored anymore. He felt he owed more to himself, in terms of achievements, he felt like a fake and a failure.
Corporate India is under tremendous stress and pressure. Over 50% of India Inc. is clinically depressed, have anxiety, prey to chronic illnesses and plagued with unhappiness.
What's the solution?
According to me there can be no solution if we do not address the problem.
#Silence Todo is a campaign that we started in 2015 to break the silence around issues such as these. We are knocking our heads on corporate doors that seem to not understand the importance of having a mental health cell in their premises. Its excruciating and the news is now covering suicide as an epidemic that needs to be addressed.
Suicide is rampant amongst our youth, with housewives, with corporate leaders, with people struggling with business. In 2014 the headlines read 'Suicide is the biggest epidemic' and it isn't an opinion, but a fact.
The Poddar Foundation has taken this campaign to many a corporate to avail of their CSR for this mission, but the leaders do not yet understand the importance of the mission. They do not understand that in this case prevention is the only cure. Remember that suicide is the end result of having nowhere to turn.
Prevention starts with awareness. Talking about this openly helps people break through the barrier of shame in their minds and enables them to access information about healing their emotions and thoughts, which in turn help them, cope.
Nobody goes to their internal counselors to talk about their anguish. They feel the weakness will jeopardize their growth. This needs to be outsourced to an external party, a corporate wellness company.
There are 13.7% of Indians that are mentally unhealthy people at least 60% of those think the world is better off without them. But the people committing suicide are not just those, it is people who are seemingly 'well', such as Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, Himanshu Roy, a high profile guru Bhaiyyu Maharaj and the countless others who suffer and then finally opt to take their lives.
This issue is an elephant swept hurriedly under the rug and unfortunately we will all trip over it.
Getting back to our story of Rahul, he was rebranded with terms like 'overachiever', 'workaholic', 'go-getter' but no one addressed his behavior as mentally unhealthy.
India definitely has little or no concept of work life balance. The employees feel like the company has bought their soul and they don't have the bandwidth to spend time with their friends or even their aging parents.
We have to understand the catch 22. Companies need to turn their focus towards mentally and emotionally empowering their workers so that their vitality and commitment will drive up the profits. I want to emphasize that no company can achieve brilliant profits with a poorly motivated, absent workforce. If your employees do not wish to come for work, if they hate the idea of team meetings, if they find the office insufferable, how are you making profits? And even if you are, how long will that be sustainable?
A sick workforce will eventually led to a sick economy. Currently there are still issues such as unfair wages, the fear of losing their jobs, conflicts with co-workers, harassment both sexual and non-sexual, the lack of appreciation and appraisals impact their mental health and motivation negatively.
Lack of time with their families has other issues. According to the statistics family related issues cause the most amount of stress leading to suicide.
In India, it's normal to have a 14 hour work days and a mere 18 days allotted as government holidays in a year. To top it family and social time is frowned upon. Indian workplaces mistake time off as time wasted. It's a mindset that needs a revamp. Creativity, vitality, energy and motivation needs to find its own time.
What you need, is a holistic workplace that values its employees, who in turn value getting the job done in a motivated manner rather than getting a paycheck at the end of the month.
An organization is much like an organism, a living, breathing entity that works on harnessed energies and teamwork. One cannot climb up the corporate ladder with baggage tying them down. And managers cannot expect super star performances if you are not giving equal back in return to the employee.
I've done countless interventions and corporate health checkups for medium and large companies. I've found that employee dissatisfaction can be addressed once they are given an outlet for release. Otherwise, the resentment continues to haunt their work and personal lives in a toxic cycle.
Rahul was admitted to the ICU at 4 a.m. on 4th March, 2018, after his wife found him bloodied and unresponsive in their bathroom. He made a recovery physically in fifteen days. He began therapy in April and is now finally at a place in life where he doesn't want to end it anymore.
_20241010140125_original_image_2.webp)
_20241010001905_original_image_2.webp)