Staff mental wellness at higher education institutions is being left behind and employees – especially academics – tend to suffer in silence rather than seek assistance, according to speakers at Unisa’s recent 2023 Open and Distance eLearning (ODeL) conference.

They highlighted the urgent need for institutions to prioritise the mental wellness of their staff and, at the same time, for staff to pay more attention to their own self-care.

From left: Thobeka Msengana, Hugo van der Walt, and Prof Margaret Omidire

“If you do not make time for mental health, you must then be prepared to make time for mental illness,” said Thobeka Msengana, counselling psychologist and head of the Student Counselling Unit at the University of Fort Hare.

This could take the form of anxiety, panic attacks, depression and suicide ideation, among others, said Msengana, who was among the panellists discussing the topic of staff wellness in ODeL in times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) – a topic that has not received nearly as much attention as student mental health.

Noting that university wellness support services were mostly directed to students, Msengana said the mental health of staff tended to be under discovered and underrepresented.

Stigma keeps staff from coming forward

“Employees would rather suffer in silence because they are fearful of the stigma – they don’t want to be seen as not capable,” Msengana said, adding that there is also a perception among academics that they should be immune to mental health challenges.

Although COVID-19 pandemic pressures had lessened, this did not mean that the mental pressures associated with the pandemic had abated. Many employees were still grappling with the aftermath, including the loss of loved ones, health complications and psychological issues such as post-traumatic stress and a sense of heightened vigilance. “We live with the sense that something bad is going to happen.”

“Employees need to prioritise their mental health post-pandemic,” she said, adding that employees could not afford to treat their mental wellness as a “secondary issue”.

As for managers and institutions, they should focus strongly on supporting employees by eliminating the stigma around mental health challenges and by educating employees about how they can benefit from wellness services and how they can access these services - confidentially. “It is important to create psychological safety for employees to come forward and ask for help,” concluded Msengana.

Stressors at ODeL workplaces

Stressors present in the ODeL environment specifically also need to be considered in the mental wellness strategies of institutions, said other members of the panel.

“The challenges to staff wellness include ever-increasing enrolments in ODeL, the demanding nature of ODeL work and the multiple roles staff have to juggle,” said Hugo van der Walt, a research psychologist at Unisa’s Open and Distance Learning Institute.

In ODeL environments, staff often have to shoulder higher administrative loads and constantly adapt to new technologies, he said, adding that the global shift to online lecturing during the pandemic had been accompanied by high to very high stress levels for most ODeL staff.

He suggested solutions be implemented on three levels, starting with the individual, where the focus should be on self-care, especially through setting boundaries between work and employees’ personal lives.

At management level, prevention and risk mitigation strategies were key, he said, while at institutional level, mental wellbeing should be factored into all core decision-making processes. Higher education institutions should also make a point of doing research on staff health and wellness challenges.

Professor Margaret Omidire, University of Pretoria educational psychologist, reiterated the importance of setting and respecting boundaries, destigmatising mental wellness services and being proactive in approaching the issue of staff mental wellness. “Institutions need to show they are really interested in staff welfare. It is not enough to send emails saying, there is a webinar on wellness, attend.”

Omidire urged higher education institutions to encourage dialogue on staff mental wellbeing and to create “safe spaces” for this. “It is important for us to work together to ensure individual and collective wellbeing.”

* By Clairwyn Rapley, Directorate Research Support