With the few years I've spent on earth, I've worked as an employee in two organisations, and both operated in a way where staff members had little or no time for themselves. We worked from Monday to Sunday and from morning till night. The only time we were given a break was when we were sick. Unfortunately for me, I only had that opportunity once because I hardly ever fall sick.

In a system like that, when staff members propose having mental health leave so they can use the opportunity to relax, recover mentally, and return to work in a better state, it's very understandable. However, in a situation where the working system is already good, with many breaks in between for staff members, demanding a mental health leave is, in my opinion, absolutely out of place.

Oh yes, I'm an African man, and it feels odd to include that kind of leave for staff members, except the owner of the organisation has excess money to keep paying employees without them putting in their full effort.

Does this mean that mental health is not valued?

No, not at all. That isn't what it means.

Mental health is just as valuable as physical health, but adding mental health leave to the existing health leave already adopted in many working systems is more like giving workers only five days to work in a month if they decide to take full advantage of the policy.

If I were a staff member looking for an excuse to be away from work, I could simply request a mental health leave without providing any accurate evidence. Or is there any "quick" evidence that someone is suffering from a mental health issue in the same way we can easily identify many physical illnesses, maternity-related conditions, and others? Of course, there isn't, except in cases where someone is clearly experiencing a severe mental health crisis.

Even if such leave were limited to once a month, it would still reduce the number of days employees work each month.

Like I said earlier, this kind of leave is reasonable in a system where staff members work continuously from Monday to Sunday throughout the month without proper breaks or shifts. However, in a situation where there are shifts and regular breaks in between, I don't think there is a need for a separate mental health leave.

It's possible that some Western countries practise this. Their economies function differently from what we have in many parts of Africa, and we shouldn't automatically imitate their work policies because the systems are not the same.

Honestly, many Nigerians reading this who are employed would probably frown at what I'm saying. However, if they put themselves in the position of employers, they'll see how difficult it would be to cope with such a policy because it could mean hiring two or three employees for a position that one person can already handle.

I drop my keyboard here.

Thanks for reading.

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