Demonstrating a genuine interest in employee mental health may be the best thing you can do for your laborers. Some of the immediate benefits of this include increased performance, better retention, enhanced creativity, and a more significant return on investment.
But of course, this isn’t only about your business. Enhanced well-being is paramount for employees to perform their jobs, stay focused, and thrive. Lack of measures targeting laborers’ emotional health can lead to severe problems, including stress and anxiety among these people, ruined work-life balance, and even burnout and depression symptoms.
So, don’t rush to pride yourself on being an exemplary employer without examining employee mental health measures first. Is there something in your organization’s running approach that could hurt workers? Are these people thrilled with what they’re doing?
Try to look beyond the surface, so don’t focus too much on how many tasks are completed daily, but on how your staff reacts to the different responsibilities given to them and how they feel about their profession.
Communication can prove helpful in this sense. Fortunately, many feasible ways exist to address this matter and redesign work to promote psychological health.
Here are some helpful approaches in this regard:
Table of Contents
Promote emotional health awareness
The first and foremost step in supporting employees’ well-being is to give up on stigma. Most people are afraid to talk about mental health partly because of the lack of understanding and partly because of the social taboo surrounding this topic.
Therefore, start this journey by simply destigmatizing discussions about emotional health in the workplace. You could do so by implementing ample awareness programs and counseling and investing in proper training.
These resources should include information about different psychological health conditions, potential causes, and recommendations for addressing them.
It’s essential to educate both your managers and employees on how to recognize symptoms of anxiety, depression, burnout, etc., and assure them they’re not alone in this.
Provide stress-relieving break activities
Work-related duties can make the working environment more stressful than you think. That’s one of the reasons many employees nowadays choose to quit and go for another job that – they hope so – would make them feel more satisfied.
You don’t want things to go that further, so ensure you spare no effort in providing your team with adequate work conditions and, of course, breaks and opportunities to socialize. Restrooms are a good idea in this regard, especially if your laborers’ work is arduous or constantly exposed to harsh conditions (dust, chemical agents, noise, high or low temperatures).
Practicing yoga to mitigate mental health-related risks is also excellent. This measure has proven to be the go-to option in many working environments, so you may also want to schedule a few yoga sessions for your team.
Another interesting approach implies providing well-being stations that everyone, from managers to regular employees, can use for their breaks. Be sure to include adult coloring books and areas for stretching or meditation so that workers can choose what best aligns with their needs.
A gift-giving occasion could also prove beneficial for your team, so if you don’t have a Secret Santa event on Christmas, ensure you take it into account for this year. Not only can gift-giving show your employees how much you value their work in the company, but it’s also an inventive break activity.
Thus, consider looking for thoughtful corporate gifts that assure your workers they’re appreciated.
Invest in learning and development
It’s paramount for your employees to feel that they can develop both personally and professionally while working at your company. You’d be surprised how many people hand in their resignation because of a lack of learning and development opportunities. Therefore, enabling continuous learning is no longer an option but a necessity to retain top talent.
An excellent measure, in this sense, implies providing resources in the form of sponsored classes, online classes and videos, webinars, or online courses. This will not only expand workers’ horizons and skill sets, but it’ll also increase satisfaction, motivation, and, hence, engagement.
However, consider conducting some research into employee engagement so that you can implement measures suitable for their needs.
Training is your best friend in this sense, but job shadowing in other roles or departments or coaching with a senior team member are also viable ways to educate your employees. Plus, just like giving personalized mugs or another kind of gift on Christmas, this will prove to your team members that you value and appreciate them.
Establish flexible work options
Employees’ emotional distress can be caused, among others, but their incapacity to keep pace with the actual work programme. Or, they may not come to work every day due to factors such as the lack of transportation or parenting responsibilities.
In this case, laborers should receive support, not judgment. People do need flexibility, and this can be seen in the increasing adoption of remote work. Besides, according to a recent study, 34 percent of employees think that flexible work hours would enhance their emotional health. Nonetheless, flexibility isn’t just about remote work.
It can also refer to a hybrid schedule, 9/80 schedule, unlimited vacation, leaves and sabbaticals, or compressed work week. With unlimited vacation, for example, workers can take extensive personal time off (PTO) as long as they meet all their deadlines and deliverables.
A hybrid schedule, on the other hand, implies working remotely a few days per week and coming into the office the other days. You can take this measure to the next level by allowing workers to choose when they’re going to come into the office and when they’ll work from home.
Other impactful ways to promote employees’ well-being include:
- Foster a sense of social belonging among workers
- Develop impactful mentoring programs
- Practice mindfulness
- Arrange events for your team
- Build an ergonomic workplace
- Encourage physical activity
- Lead by example
