WHO Didn't Release Workplace Rules for a Happy Life
The Claim
The WHO released 10 workplace rules for a happy life on World Mental Health Day.
News posted on
Emerging story
“Workplace rules for a happy life” are being circulated on social media and numerous websites (Policy Times, Steemit, Educators Files). It appears the rules have been recurrently shared from as early as 2017.
The posts claim that these rules were released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for World Mental Health Day. They include 10 rules ranging from relationships between employees in the workplace, how to behave and manage expectations.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar investigated multiple WHO resources to determine if these rules were disseminated from their organization, however, no evidence of that was found.
The WHO website has no mention of such rules, nor were any other official publications found. After using the advanced search on Facebook, Google and Twitter, it appears the earliest posting of the claim was on the 12th of October 2017.
World Mental Health Day falls on the 10th of October, and it is true in 2017 the yearly theme to go with the day was Mental Health in the Workplace, this may indicate the link between the rules being released in October 2017.
The article published by WHO discussed workplace initiatives to promote mental health and the impact of mental health on productivity. While other publications on the same topic further discussed the risks and how to create a healthy workplace, however, no rules were mentioned in either. The WHO even has a comprehensive 131 pages Healthy Workplace Framework and Model, which should have discussed the rules in the claim, the Misbar team searched for any wording of the rules and found none.
The rules are also not directly linked to mental, occupational, or physical health issues but rather personal behaviors.
Furthermore, they do not appear to be scientific in nature nor based on any research findings. None of the sources that shared the information linked any official WHO statements, further weakening the claim. Therefore given the lack of evidence, the Misbar investigation concludes that these rules were not released by the WHO.
