This is to state that mental health affects work performance immensely especially at employees working in academic institutions that have very high workloads, tight deadlines and the pressure of the instituting quality standards in education. As an educational hub that is rapidly growing in Indore, the faculty members, the administrative staff and the support personnel as well, struggle with different extents of mental health issues created by long working hours and job insecurity and the need to balance both professional and personal lives. Educators often are stressed, anxious and burnt out, likely due to an overload of teaching, research expectations, and the administrative end. Similarly, non-teaching staff face job-related stress due to institutional policies, workload management, and financial concerns. Bad mental health can slow down productivity, cause lack of job satisfaction as well as interactions with other individuals at academic institutions, and have a joint effect on student's learning outcomes and the whole institution's performance.

Mental health and work performance: A complex interaction between the work environment, employee autonomy in their job, peer support and institutional policies. Employees with higher mental wellbeing engage more, are more creative and efficient and employees in psychological distress may suffer absenteeism, low motivation and performance. Mental health issues in academic institutions need to be recognised and dealt with in order to ensure a favourable work culture where employees’ wellbeing and the institution’s performance are maximised. We can implement workplace wellness programs, provide mental health counseling, and stress management initiatives which will solve the problem of improving the mental resilience and productivity of employees. This paper investigates the work performance relationship of the employees of academic institutions in Indore considering mental health as one of the variables, with the main intention of advocating for preventive mental health interventions that can make the education environment much healthier and productive.

The main objective of this study is to examine the correlation between mental health and employees’ performance at institutional level institutions in Indore. Unique challenges related to mental health can be faced by academic staff in form of administration personnel and they are the faculty members, administrative personnel and the support staff, and they include heavy workloads, job insecurity and the overall stress of dealing with teaching, research and overall administrative responsibilities. In order to identify strategies to improve job satisfaction, and the overall well-being of academic faculty members, it is important to understand how mental health affects workers’ performance in the academic setting. The purpose of this research is to fill the existing gap in the literature by concentrating on the particular issue of mental health in the employee in the academic institution in Indore, an emerging educational hub in India.

Among the objectives of the research are assessing of the mental health state of the academic institution employees, examination of mental health effect on the job performance of employees, and those of the main factors of the emergence of mental health problems in the academic environment. The purpose of this research was to determine how mental health issues influence work performance specifically absenteeism, productivity, engagement, and social relationships. Further, the research will also consider existing institutional support systems and mental health interventions and assess their contributions to employee’s psychological well being. The research hopes to be able to make recommendations for the improvement in mental health support in academic institutions in order to ensure a healthier and more productive work environment for the employees.

They are academic employees such as faculty, administrators and support staff who are frequently working under extreme pressure associated with their job. Several factors inside the workplace and from the outside contribute an awful lot to their challenges with mental health. Workload is one of the most prominent factors that greatly affect distributed systems. For example, a faculty member at the higher end of education would generally have the responsibilities for teaching, research, making the course material, grading, and attending faculty meetings. In response to the rising requirements of managing academic schedules, student services, and processes of the institution, the administrative staff and support personnel are pressured into carrying heavy workloads. The heavy workload ultimately leads to chronic stress, burnout and fatigue causing massive damages on employees’ mental wellbeing.

Another significant factor which affects the mental health of academic employees is job insecurity. Academic institutions, especially in the developing areas such as Indore are financially constrained and job security is not guaranteed for a majority of institutions, more particularly for contract based or the adjunct faculty. The feeling of insecurity can lead the workers to anxiety and stress due to their unclear situation with regard to the institution in future. Additionally, the need to achieve performance standards for promotion, tenure, or research funding magnifies such feelings of inadequacy so that stress and anxiety become common. The instability of jobs causes morale to fall and motivation to perform well diminishes, leading to a worsening mental health.

Also, academics’ mental health is influenced by work to life balance. The difficulty many academic staff struggle with including the professional responsibilities and their personal and family life. Students are always expected to be constantly available for working, especially during grading periods, research deadline or for proceeding lectures, leaving no time for rest or for any individual activities. Such imbalance is a condition that could bear high stress, relationship difficulties and even feeling of being isolated. Not being able to take sufficient breaks or to indulge in recreational activities is among some of the mental health issues that are likely to occur like anxiety and depression.

Also, absence of institutional support factors to increase the rate of mental challenges among the academic employees is not due to workplace related challenges only. There are plenty of institutions which do not offer enough mental health services, counseling programs or projects that promote mental well being. If employees are not offered the resources possibly could help alleviate stress or tackle mental health issues, they start to feel stressed and frustrated. Additionally, academic systems are primarily focused on productivity and output, not allowing for self-care or being able to recover mentally. Such pressure to perform can lead to a toxic work culture that discourages employees from seeking help for fear of being stigmatized or thought of as weak thus jeopardizing their career prospects.

Lastly, personal and external factors not within the academic environment also interfere the mental health of the employees. Work stress can be aggravated by, among others, personal issues like family problems, financial difficulties, or health problems. This can cause employees to have a hard time separating their personal issues from their professional duties, which then allows their time and productivity at work to suffer. It may also include external pressure, e.g., societal expectations, economic instability, and political uncertainty, which equally also contribute to overall stress levels and hence impact mental health of academic employees. Of course, many of these external factors confound the stress of the professional demands, causing mental deterioration over time.

Finally, there are numerous factors associated with the being academic employees, and which lead to mental health challenges. These problems can be tackled only with a myriad of approaches like the management of workload, security of job, enhanced institutional assistance, and projects for the advancement of work–life balance. By taking note of these factors, institutions can ease the effects of stress on their employees and ensuring that a stress-free campus environment that produces productive success is maintained.

The study of mental health in determining the work performance of academic employees is deemed significant. Individuals who suffer from anxiety, depression, and burnout to name a few, are usually less productive, take more time off and are less engaged with their work. For example, faculty experiencing elevated levels of stress may have difficulty creating, grading, and maintain their involvement in research, which in turn, influences the provision of satisfactory education to students. Moreover, administrative staff struggling with mental health issues would have trouble processing work flow which would consequently lead to hinderance of academic processing, student services along with overall institutional operations. This means that poor mental health directly affects how efficient, effective, and quality of work output in academic institutions.

Furthermore, mental health issues can decrease and derail interpersonal relationship and teamwork in institutes of learning. When the employees are under stress or anxiety, they do not have the capacity to work with the colleagues effectively and as a result, communication breakdowns may occur, conflicts may arise and at the end, there cannot be cooperation. In such an academic environment, where teamwork and collaboration are commonplace for conducting research projects, carrying on committee work, and developing the curriculum, interpersonal issues can impede institutional progress. Also, mental health issues can result in employees’ less joy of work and the motivation to work which deprives them of dedicating themselves to their roles. When the workplace fails to focus on mental health, these problems do not just decrease performance levels but are also the reason for higher turnover rates and a hazardous organizational culture. As a result, mental health needs to be addressed to keep studying a productive, harmonious and thriving place.

Effective interventions and support systems in addressing mental health challenges of academic institution employees should be tailored in addressing the unique demands of the academic environment. The most important intervention to be made in this regard is to give mental health awareness programs in institutions. These programs can help educate employees of the importance of mental health, reduce stigma, and even teach employees how to take better care of themselves. Information on signs of mental health issues and ways to manage stress can be valuable and this information can be disseminated through workshops, seminars and awareness campaigns. By promoting open and healthy conversations about mental health in the academic institution, it encourages its employees to seek help without the fear of judgment or fearing repercussions in their career. We also need to establish employee assistance programs (EAPs) with confidential counseling for those employees experiencing stress, anxiety or depression. These services should be available both on the site and virtually to be available to all the employees the faculty, administrative and support staff.

Along with awareness programs and counseling institutional support systems are also a key part of solving the root causes of mental health problems. For example, institutions can provide policies which guarantee superior working balance through suitable working schedules without vast workload and training of employees on time management. Ensuring that employees have enough or enough of resources to perform their job is a way to reduce job related stress. In addition, institutions can have additional peer support networks that can cultivate a feeling of community and belonging. Employee can have emotional support, they can reduce any isolation felt and can provide motivation for employees to enhance collaboration of colleagues across systems. Even instituting mental health days or other designated break times, institutions can prevent burnout among employees by giving them time to unwind. When generalized to a broader application, academic institutions should also enact holistic employee welfare programs that include the promotion of physical health via fitness programs or meditation sessions, as they are often interdependent components. Additionally, providing a workplace culture that is inclusive, supportive and flexible packages is vital in enhancing job satisfaction and ultimately, promoting mental health and better work performance. Implemented wisely, however, such initiatives play a key role in assisting institutions in supporting the wellbeing of their employees, as well as improving institutional productivity and morale.

The methodology for this study is quantitative in nature to analyze the relationship of mental health with work performance of academic employee in Indore. Through stratified random sampling, 150 employees involved faculty, administrative and support staff from different types of academic institutions were selected as a sample to enhance diversity among types of job roles as well as institutional types. Structured surveys were used to collected data, where standardized scales were used to assess the construct of mental health, work engagement, innovative behavior and job performance. The mental health status was evaluated by the Mental Health Inventory (MHI-5). Job Performance was measured by a Likert scale rated different work-related tasks and outcomes. Established scales, like the IWES and Innovative Behavior Scale (IBS), were used to measure work engagement and innovative behavior respectively. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the main trends of the collected data while considering correlation analysis to identify the relationships between the variables. SPSS software was used to analyze with the purpose of ensuring accuracy and reliability. Rather, the study aims to use mental health as a factor to understand how it affects academic employees’ productivity, job satisfaction and general performance, and recommends what institutional interventions can be applied to enhance employee wellbeing and how it will impact their work outcomes.

The above correlation matrix exhibits relationships of different variables which influence work performance and well being of academic employees. Various variables, including Work Experience (-0.1093), have weak negative correlations with Firm Age, meaning that older firms may not necessarily be related to more experience at the firm. Furthermore, with a correlation coefficient of –0.0162, the relationship between Firm Age and Employee Mental Health is of little significance, implying that age of the institution has a little effect on employees’ mental health. As in the case of Firm Age, Job Performance and Firm Age has a weak correlation (0.0764) which illustrates that increase in the age of a firm does not increase job performance directly. Employee Mental Health is weakly positively correlated with Num Employees (0.1016), which means larger institutions may offer slightly better resources or support in terms of the mental health of their employees, but the association is weak.

The other correlations reveal other trends, namely that Work Experience has a moderate positive correlation with Innovative Behavior (0.1717) indicating that employees with more work experience are inclined to demonstrate more innovative behavior in their workplace. The results for Employee Mental Health reveal a positive, but weak correlation (0.0916) with Work Engagement and job performance (0.0343) suggesting that a higher level of mental health among employees could slightly be linked to higher engagement as well as slight better performance in their jobs. Work Engagement seems to have a stronger correlation with Education Background (0.1404) as it might appear that the more educated the employees are, the more they will be enthusiastic and involved in their work. Overall, the correlation strength between the different variables to work performance and engagement is stronger than paid hours, time from birth to first job, age, work intensity, skills, work experience, and education background each, which itself explains the weak and no significant correlations with employee mental health and work performance.

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

The descriptive statistics for the different variables pertaining to the study of academic employees’ performance and well-being are presented on the table with the mean and standard deviation (S.D.) of each. Average Firm Age has a mean of 2.978 and a standard deviation of 1.064, so the firms are relatively new on average and there is moderate variability about the mean. Mean of Number of Employees is slightly more diverse, with the mean being 3.830 and a standard deviation 1.420. Education Background with a mean of 2.760 and a standard deviation of 0.790 signifies that the employee educational levels are somewhat concentrated but have some variability.

The Mean of Work Experience is 5.800, and the Standard Deviation of 4.214, which is quite large, represents great variation in years of experience, implying that the sample covers beginners and more experienced persons. Employee Mental Health has a mean of 4.657 and standard deviation of 1.458 indicating a moderate level of overall mental health with significant variability, intimating that there is a range of mental health within the employees. Work Engagement and Innovative Behavior have relatively high mean values of 4.873 and 5.188 respectively, and standard deviations of 1.288 and 1.210, indicating that on the whole, the workforce is engaged and innovative. Job Performance with the mean 5.219 and standard deviation 1.170, show a high job performance where participants differ not much among them. These statistics give a broad picture of the state of sports in the academic sector in terms of institutional environment, employee wellbeing and levels of performance are provided.

This study reveals that mental health and work performance of the employees of academic institutions of Indore are related to each other significantly. The results point out that scores on work engagement and job performance correlate moderately positively with the mental health scores; however, the relationship is weak and there are other factors besides mental health that influence employee performance, for example, work environment and institutional support. However, employees with better mental health have higher levels of engagement and a slightly greater contribution to their job performance, but the impact is less marked that anticipated. The study also points to the problems the academic employees are confronting, which include rising workloads, job insecurity and lack of institutional support that contribute to poor mental health and poor work performance. Stress, anxiety, and burnout, mental issues, were detrimental for productivity, increasing absenteeism and decreasing creativity. Institutions which do not have these initiatives, must then move to adopt counseling services in enhancing mental health support, stress management programs and promotion of a healthier work environment. If implemented, these interventions would likely improve not only employees’ wellbeing but also their work outcomes, and ultimately, the employees’ productivity and engagement. It is stressed that schools must adopt policies that embrace mental health so that educational institutions can keep on winning and growing.

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