“It’s so important that we all speak up on mental health.”- Anne-Marie
Mental health still remains a taboo in most parts of the world. People are afraid to talk about their struggles because they fear that they won’t be understood and will be ridiculed. As a result, they don’t speak about their struggles and suffer silently. But, now with the prevalence of the pandemic, the world has also witnessed a mental health crisis. People are speaking about the anxiety and depressive episodes triggered by the pandemic. This has helped in reducing the stigma around mental health to some extent. More and more people have started speaking about their struggles with mental health and employees are no exception.
With the prevalence of the pandemic, more and more employees are experiencing excruciating levels of stress, anxiety and other mental issues. This is because their already existing high levels of work stress have got combined with the stress and anxiety associated with the pandemic.
These mental health issues are not only impacting employee well-being in a negative manner but they are also adversely impacting the overall productivity and performance of business organizations. If your employees are stressed and anxious, they cannot work well. Further, as your employees make a return to the office, it is estimated that their anxiety levels will rise even further. After all, vaccination doesn’t eradicate the threat of catching Covid infection.
All these factors together make it crucial for you to support employee mental well-being as your workers return back to the office.
5 actionable tactics to support employee well-being as they return to the office:
Spread awareness and offer free counselling facilities to your employees:
Many people hesitate to speak about their mental health and seeking counselling. There are a number of reasons for this. They fear being judged, what they might discover in therapy and the financial costs involved. As a result, they keep struggling alone. This often aggravates the issues and they get locked in their own mind.You can help your employees from getting trapped in such a situation by spreading awareness about mental health and therapy. You can help your workforce understand the positive impacts of therapy and ensure that they won’t be judged under any circumstances. Moreover, you can also offer them free counselling facilities with a promise to keep things confidential. This will help your employees muster the courage and take therapy if needed.
Communicate with each employee personally to keep a check on their mental well-being:
This is an important thing you can do to help your employees maintain a good mental health during these challenging times. Many times difficult emotions and worries get released by simply communicating with others, bringing healing to the mind. You can encourage your workers to share their concerns with you by engaging in one-to-one conversations with them. During these conversations, you can stimulate your employees to open up by sharing things from your own life. You can tell them the struggles you had to face during the pandemic. This will motivate them to share their struggles with you too. This way, you can get to know if your workers are feeling well or not. If not, you can extend timely help to them and save them from becoming victims of serious mental issues.
Make mental health coverage a part of the healthcare benefits you offer to your employees:
To eradicate the stigma around mental health within your organization, you can make mental health coverage a part of the healthcare benefits you offer to your employees. This will not only make your employees feel comfortable about opening up about their mental health issues with you but also motivate them to utilize the benefits if needed. There are many people who don’t seek mental healthcare because it is costly. By including mental health benefits with the healthcare benefits you provide, you can help your employees not to be bothered by the financial aspects of mental healthcare. This will certainly motivate them to give due importance to their mental health without worrying about anything.
Bid adieu to micromanagement and provide autonomy to your employees:
Micromanagement is one of the biggest enemies of employee well-being. When you try to control your employees’ ways of working and monitor them excessively, they feel suffocated. This further pushes them in a pit of stress. Micromanaging can be really harmful for your employees' well-being especially during the current times of the ongoing pandemic. Their already high levels of stress and anxiety will get further fueled by the stress caused by micromanagement. So, to help your employees with stress management during these difficult times, you should try to bid adieu to micromanagement and provide autonomy to your employees.
Provide additional time off to your workforce:
Time off can act as one of the biggest mental health benefits that you can provide your employees with. When we get some time off from work, we can relax, look inwards and address the issues that are bothering us. Moreover, during the time off, we can be with our friends, loved ones and share our struggles with them, which is good for our mental well-being. So, you should try to provide additional time off to your workforce. This will help your employees relax, rejuvenate and look after their mental health during these challenging times. You can also provide them with some mental health resources that they can access from the comforts of their home. Subscription to mental health apps, online meditation and mindfulness programs are some examples of resources that you can provide them with.
Employee mental health is getting severely impacted by the pandemic. Most workers across the globe suffer from work stress. Now, the stress and anxiety associated with the pandemic has added to work stress and brought a significant increase in their overall stress levels. This calls upon employers like you to put their efforts to support employee well-being during these challenging times. When your employees are in the best of their health, only then can they function at their best. So, you should try to support your employees’ mental well-being with the help of the different tactics mentioned above. Now, wishing you All the best and may your organization grow and prosper.
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