Refactoring Mindsets: Prioritizing Mental Health in Software Development

Good day, folks. I'm really excited to be with you today and I'm going to be talking to you about a really important topic, a topic that's close to my heart, and the title of this presentation, as you can see, is Refactoring Mindsets. And it's all about prioritizing mental health in software development because I really think that this is a big topic that a lot of people don't talk about. They seem to be scared about it. They skirt around the obvious. And I really want to put a spotlight on it today. So I hope that you enjoy my presentation and thank you for being here.

So what I'm actually going to start with first is I quickly want to do an introduction. So my name is Vanessa Rath and I want to give a quick shout out to Ella Pavlova, who is based in Amsterdam, who recommended me to be speaking at this conference today. And by way of just introducing myself, I'm actually a talent sourcing trainer. So I train teams from all over the world on how to be better sources of talent. So we look at things like, you know, why are recruiters trying to recruit you software developers of places like LinkedIn? You know, why aren't they looking in other places where you like to spend your time? So that's pretty much what I do. I've trained a lot of people over a thousand, in fact, and from one over a hundred countries. So my hours are very weird. I work all over the place and I do a lot of travel too. The other part of what I do is I do a lot of speaking like this at conferences, particularly in the recruitment space, talent sourcing, personal branding. And I've actually just come back from presenting in Istanbul and I'm off to Spain later this month to deliver a presentation. So yeah, always keeping busy and on my toes.

Now this is where I live. I'm very fortunate. I live in a beautiful place called Plattenberg Bay, which is in South Africa. It's part of what's called the Garden Route. And I just thought I'd share some photos with you just so that you get an idea of how beautiful it is and hopefully one day you'll come and visit us. So let's get started. And when I first chatted with Veronica about what would I want to present at this conference, for me what was really obvious, I mean I've now spent close to 20 years in the talent attraction, recruiting, talent sourcing, branding kind of space. One of the things that I really find amazing is what I spoke about previously is about how people don't talk about mental health, yet it's one of those really fast-paced, dynamic, unappreciated industries. And it does seem to be one of the industries that is really prone to people suffering from different mental health issues. So when getting ready for this presentation, I actually stumbled across this quote from 2022, so this is not a new thing from Stack Overflow. And if you remember what happened in 2020, we were all struck down with the COVID pandemic. But what I really found amazing was two years later, you can see the impact that this was having.

And this year, we see more developers identifying as having a concentration and or memory disorder that was over 10%, anxiety disorder and mood or emotional disorder such as depression, which for me was really amazing. Because as we all know, Stack Overflow does their annual survey. They put it out every year. It's really interesting. But these were the increased numbers. So these numbers had increased on memory and concentration by 11%, anxiety by 10%. So this was the increased numbers, not the total numbers. And for me, this was like, wow, the pandemic has really, really pushed the mental health issues and really thrown a highlight on it, which I think is really important.

So then continuing and doing a little bit more research, I started thinking about my situation. And the reason why I wanted to talk about this topic was because I'm actually an ADHD sufferer. So I like to refer to ADHD as attention deficit in the high definition. So ADD and HD. A lot of females of my age actually suffer more from ADD as opposed to ADHD. A lot of my male counterparts have ADHD. And for me, it's always been something that I've struggled with. I mean, I struggled with it through school, through university, through a lot of jobs. And now I take medication every day in order to run my own business. I always say that I have to think my ADHD medication, my Ritalin, in order that I can be a successful solopreneur working on a global stage at the moment. So it's important to me because this is a disorder. And a lot of the problems that you see with businesses these days is that you can see if somebody's broken a leg. You can see if someone's sneezing and they've got a cold. But you can't always see mental health issues. So you can't see if someone is suffering from depression or extra anxiety issues. And these are the things that we need to be really aware of because they matter. And they matter just as much as a physical illness. So something that I'm passionate about from a personal experience.

Now before we move on, I just want to quickly, you know, let's put these two into their right places. Mental health and mental illness is something that is quite different. So mental health is actually your general state of well-being and state of health. Something that should be looked after.

And this is something that I think we all need to be more aware of. Often, a mental illness or a mental health issue pops up because we've ignored all of the signs that go along with it. Mental illness, on the other hand, is something that disrupts your mental state and interrupts how you feel or think or communicate and behave. So we need to really understand the different definitions around this because how we deal with them is actually really different.

Now, I went and then did some more research, especially in the tech space around mental health issues that have been happening. And according to an article that I found of a website I'm going to share a little bit later, is that 51% of tech professionals have been diagnosed with a mental health condition at some point throughout their career. And these were global stats. And that, for me, was just unbelievable because if you think about all of the people that you know working in the tech industry, how many of them have actually shared with you that they have a mental health condition that they want to talk about? So this is really surprising that more than half suffer from that.

Also, 71% of tech workers said their productivity is affected by a mental health issue. And again, these are things which we need to consider because work is what we wake up and do every day. And that's a big impact, 71%. Productivity is also big. As we all know, in the tech industry, the pressure's on. We've got to deliver. We've got to keep our clients happy. So this has a massive impact. And another thing which we can think, you know, the pandemic for a large part is burnout. Not again only in the tech industry, but the tech industry was really affected by a lot of the people working in the industry suffering from burnout. So really interesting stats there. And things to just consider is that I think the numbers are a lot higher than what people realize and where people give, you know, the credit of what could be potentially going wrong in the existing teams at the moment. They thought that it could actually be more serious mental health or mental illness issues that are happening at the moment. So I'm sure that this imager, you know, would resonate with a lot of people is that, you know, in the tech space, there's a lot of people that are on the outside. They appear confident and competent and they're delivering on their projects. So on the outside, they're portraying really, really strong images. But on the inside, there's actually a lot going on. Not coping. And the danger with this is that the tech industry, a lot of people don't actually get outside enough. So two ways. They don't get outside because they don't always go into an office to work. And they don't get outside to go and, you know, appreciate nature, soak in some vitamin D and just relax and do some exercise.

So when they're at home, it's actually easier to hide behind, you know, mental illnesses because you maybe just have to be sharp for one morning meeting for half an hour, if that. And you can kind of hide the fact that there's a lot more serious mental issues happening in the background.

Also, during my research for this, I stumbled across a report going back to 2023, which was a snapshot of mental health of software professionals. So I had a read of this. It was super interesting. What was most interesting for me was, you know, how much emphasis they put on is this happening as a result of COVID and a lot of caused a lot of burnout.

A lot of people were working at home and had no boundaries between work and their personal lives. What was really interesting is in this article, the diseases and I actually went and counted them and looked at their disorders or mental health issues that came out of this report were there were a lot of them and there were quite a far range of them. A lot of anxiety came up, depression, personality disorders, burnout, autism, ADHD, bipolar, OCD, as we know, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD and even eating disorders, which you don't always see and associate with people in the tech industry, because as we all know, the tech industry is predominantly as a male workforce.

So just to highlight this, if you want to go and have a read of the article, it's very easy to find the link is at the bottom of the slide. And here we go, where we need to start thinking a little bit more seriously about these kind of disorders, if you want to put a name to them. But without putting a name to these mental illnesses and disorders, I just want to put these on your radar, because these are some of the signs that we need to look out for if you fear that there's a mental health issue. You know, the most common forms of mental illness that are out there, because I think that we need to be a little bit more cognizant of what's going on in our own bodies.

So the first one, stress and burnout, and a lot of this happens in the tech industry because the pressure of deadlines, you know, a lot of scope creep can happen and trying to deliver due to clients' needs and business needs is a big one, as well as the need to be continuously learning. The second thing that I want to put on your radars is I'm sure you're familiar with imposter syndrome. And this is particularly rough in the tech industry because it's so fast paced that I think a lot of people feel like, you know, there's too many commitments. And then finally, in the tech space, one thing I also want to highlight is this isolation. So these three things are the most common forms of mental illness that you will find in the tech industry. Again, just want to highlight them and make sure that you are keeping a check on yourself just to see, you know, are any of these popping up in yourself or your colleagues that you deal with. Also, all of this combined with long hours that we know the tech industry comes with, you know, again, either you're working or you're learning or you're doing both at the same time, this also adds and exacerbates these feelings of stress and burnout, the imposter syndrome, isolation. So we really do need to be more careful with ourselves.

You know, you've got family, you've got your personal life, you've got work, and you've got to keep up to date with things. And a lot of people can feel quite inadequate when they don't feel like they are keeping up to date and they know everything about the latest AI tools or, you know, new upgrades of the tech stack that they're working on.

So these three things are the most common forms of mental illness that you will find in the tech industry. Again, just want to highlight them and make sure that you are keeping a check on yourself just to see, you know, are any of these popping up in yourself or your colleagues that you deal with. Also, all of this combined with long hours that we know the tech industry comes with, you know, again, either you're working or you're learning or you're doing both at the same time, this also adds and exacerbates these feelings of stress and burnout, the imposter syndrome, isolation. So we really do need to be more careful with ourselves.

Again, just want to highlight them and make sure that you are keeping a check on yourself just to see, you know, are any of these popping up in yourself or your colleagues that you deal with. Also, all of this combined with long hours that we know the tech industry comes with, you know, again, either you're working or you're learning or you're doing both at the same time, this also adds and exacerbates these feelings of stress and burnout, the imposter syndrome, isolation. So we really do need to be more careful with ourselves.

Now the best way to tackle mental problems of the tech industry, this is for anyone who's managers out there, leaders, principal leads, whatever it is, and people who are employing people in the tech industry, I really encourage you to be more intentional about really promoting a work-life balance in your organization. I think a couple of years ago it was almost a bit of a badge of honor to be the developer who was still in the office in their same, excuse me, in their same clothes the next morning and they had been developing all through the night. That really isn't behavior that we should be promoting, and people need to go home and they need to make sure that they have a balance.

Another big thing which is not always that prevalent in the tech industry is more empathy. I think training your team leads, your managers, to be more empathetic to the needs of the people in their teams is a great way to put a spotlight on this, to raise awareness, and to make sure that people aren't getting too far down this journey of mental illness without someone actually noticing. Also, you can help a lot of the people in your team by them not having to constantly be developing and learning themselves by upskilling employees so that they are equipped with the rising pressure. It could be sending them to watch a presentation like this so that they understand mental illness isn't a stigma and something that can be spoken about, but also upskilling them in the tech stack and what they do. This is really important because this will help them to deal with, you know, any pressures or any speed bumps that pop up on their career journey.

So again, just remember five ways to well-being. Interesting graphic. You can put this up in your offices, but it's something we really need to do more of is to be more mindful, and mindful of what's happening with us and in return giving to others the hand on the right-hand side, which is really important. You know, be more mindful. How are you feeling? Do a temperature check-in with yourself a couple of times a day, and also just watch your teammates. You know, that's also really important. So something that I also just want to finish with here is the best ways for you to tackle any mental health problems. So if anything that I've said so far in this presentation has resonated with you and you have thought, okay, I need to do something about this, just some ideas for you. Number one being most important, exercise frequently. Get outdoors. Go for a walk. Go for a run. Do whatever it is. I think this is sometimes forgotten and we end up sitting for too long. Regular screen breaks is not only good for your eyes, but good for the body, good for the posture. And I'm going to give you a nice Chrome extension at the end of this talk that you can use to help with that. It's about getting involved, even if you are working remotely and your team's all sitting in different countries or different hemispheres. You can still get out and, you know, work with your local communities in the space. I'm sure there's always a tech community or Meetup group that you can join.

Also be kind to yourself. I think it's about setting realistic goals. You're not going to cover everything all at once. And also, big thing about the tech industry is learning to take constructive criticism because that does happen a lot. And finally, always good idea to have a mentor or a support buddy, someone that you can chat with, someone that you can learn with. It's a great idea. These happen naturally a lot of the time, but you can actually formulize it into something more rigid where you meet on maybe once a week or once every second week. And again, make sure you get enough sleep.

What I've seen a lot in the tech industry, it's synonymous with the gaming industry. So it's long nights, you know, up gaming and those kind of things, and then a full day sitting in front of a screen again. So just watch things like that. So in our search, I do encourage you to go and find organizations that can help. Open sourcing mental illness was a very interesting website. There was a lot of reviews and reports which they put out. So just so that you understand that you're not alone, there's other people that are feeling like this. Some information you can download, share with your team, share with your staff, whatever your situation.

Also, even on Quora, I found a really good thread about someone asked, you know, how do you manage your mental health as a software developer? And some really good advice on here from people who have been there and done that. Also what I recommend and this comes from the presenter with ADHD is to download this Chrome extension. It's called the Pomodoro Chrome extension. And what it does is it actually times time for you so that you can actually say every 50 minutes, you know, tell me to have a break, go wander around, have a glass of water, come back, set another time frame. You can be completely in control of the time frames that you set. But for me, if I'm sitting down and I'm actually focusing on work or something, it's a good reminder that I actually need to get up and not suddenly realize it's 3 in the afternoon and I still haven't had breakfast. So yeah, just something that I use that is a really good idea.

And just to leave you with this parting thought, you know, a lot of people have been through this before and I just want to remind you that recovery is not one and done. It's a lifelong journey that takes place one day, one step at a time. And just to remind you to really be conscious and actively make sure that you are keeping tabs on your mental health and you are keeping tabs on how you are feeling, your emotions, any extreme reactions to things because it's super important. So I'm actually just on time, which is brilliant, and I just want to share my contact details. If you want to ask any questions about my presentation, thank you very much for inviting me to be a speaker. I'd love to hear from you. Connect with me on whatever platform works for you. I'm pretty much anywhere that you're going to look. Thank you so much.