How to Encourage Mental Health in the Workplace
All too often employee wellness is viewed as a Human Resources internal communications or benefits effort. However, according to Mental Health America (MHA), “In the U.S., nearly all (98 percent) of mid to large organizations offer employee assistance programs (EAPs), but only about 4 percent of employees use them each year.”
The reality is, that all levels of an organization can contribute to normalizing the conversation around mental health including executive leadership, managers, and individual contributors.
Here are ways you can encourage mental health in the workplace today.
Executive leadership
Establish employee mental health and well-being as a top organizational priority.
It is important that executive leaders implement holistic efforts to improve employee mental health such as creating a supportive workplace culture with policies that protect and encourage employees to seek help.
Have an employee-centric mental health strategy that meets the specific needs of your organization.
Invest in your mental health strategies such as personnel, a budget, and time.
As company leadership, invest in developing supportive and emotionally intelligent people managers.
Create a process where employees can feel comfortable providing feedback to their managers.
Provide mental health training that clarifies both the employer’s and managers' roles in promoting positive workplace mental health.
Educate managers on the procedures and resources available to employees.
In MHA’s 2019 Mind the Workplace report, only about a third of employees felt that they could rely on supervisor and colleague support. This leads to higher levels of stress and job dissatisfaction.
Educate managers about burnout and how to identify signs of increased stress in their direct reports.
Investing in mental health training programs for supervisors and staff can reduce work-related sickness absences, improve working conditions, and positively impact employee knowledge, behavior, and attitudes toward people with mental illness.
Expect managers to check in with employees and encourage time off, as needed
Managers
Consider your role as a people manager including your strengths and areas for growth.
Cultivate relationships with individual contributors based on trust and respect.
Learn and apply active listening skills and emotional intelligence in daily interactions.
Learn how to have effective check-ins with your direct reports to guide and assist employees with workload management.
Look out for signs of increased stress and burnout in employees.
Actively encourage individual contributors to take time off when needed
You want your employees to strive for excellence, but employee burnout can result in rising absenteeism.
Everyone
Individual contributors should be encouraged to check on one another, know the warning signs of someone who may be struggling, and understand how to support and direct them to the appropriate resource. Creating a culture where these conversations are encouraged can promote help-seeking behaviors and reduce isolating behaviors.