KUALA LUMPUR – Forest Interactive offers mental health coverage to support and encourage talents to seek professional help for their mental wellness, in the lead-up to Mental Health Awareness Month in May.
Launched on April 15, the mental health coverage initiative is a crucial part of the employee wellness program by the company’s People Operations department and will benefit the well-being of 231 talents across Malaysia and Indonesia.
“Our employees’ mental well-being matters to us, as we believe in helping them thrive – not just at work but in their personal lives,” said Armina Mispar, Head of People Operations. “We’ve been ramping up our employee wellness program in the past year, even launching weekly #WellnessThursday newsletters to remind our talents to ‘break up with stress’ or highlighting the dangers of self-diagnosis. This time, we’re raising the bar with the launch of the mental health coverage.”
Relate Malaysia estimates that only 1 in 5 Malaysians living with mental health issues receive the treatment they need, for fear of the stigma around mental illness. Forest Interactive’s employee wellbeing program is an ongoing initiative to lead the fight in overcoming existing stigma and increasing mental health literacy, specifically through seeking professional help.
“While it’s true that poor mental health may lead to absenteeism, presenteeism, and staff turnover, it’s more important to us that we first implement educational campaigns and mental health support within the organization,” continued Armina. “We need to empower our talents with the right resources, so that they can take care of themselves first.”
The initial roll-out of the mental health coverage will be first made available to Malaysia and Indonesia-based talents with a maximum amount of RM150 and IDR200,000 per talent, respectively. To utilize the coverage, talents fill out an accessible consultation form on the company’s proprietary Helpdesk portal. Talents can get the required services with any preferred mental health professionals and submit their claims via PeopleHR.
“Our talents have always been encouraged to speak up, even when they do not yet recognize an issue or have identified a problem,” explained Armina. “Our company’s open-door policy, as well as the different communication portals we have available for talents to reach out to us, make speaking up accessible and empowering. In our 1:1 session, if we or the talent feels that an intervention is needed, People Operations will provide them with a list of mental health services upon request. This way, they can get the professional help that they need and deserve.”
As the pandemic continues to impact all aspects of our talents’ lives, especially amid lockdown orders and the rising number of cases in Malaysia and Indonesia, building a strong support system through the employee wellness program is key.
In a month since the launch of the mental health coverage, talents have provided positive feedback – affirmation for a necessary achievement and a stepping stone towards talents’ workplace well-being for the present and the future.
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About Forest Interactive
Forest Interactive develops scalable mobile platforms that enable mobile operators and content providers to build enriched customer experiences with highly-customizable and easy-to-use platforms. With over a decade of industry experience, Forest Interactive has expanded to include a workforce of 28 nationalities in 17 regional offices and 35 operating countries, providing innovative and comprehensive solutions to over 90 mobile operators and over 120 content partners with the capacity to reach 1.4 billion subscribers worldwide.
For more information, please visit forest-interactive.com.
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