Do you know how important mental health is in the workplace? Do you understand the amount it can affect your overall work environment? Let us walk you through it.
A work environment that actively supports and protects all employees’ health, safety, and well-being is a healthy workplace. Here, the management and employees work together to promote good mental health. Establishing an environment that values and promotes good mental health in the workplace is one of the best ways an employer can improve their company.
In the US, mental illness affects one in five adults on an annual basis. Yet, only a handful of people needing help will receive it, resulting in some individuals either missing work or producing less at work. Individuals who attend work while suffering physical or mental health issues results in a workplace phenomenon known as presenteeism. That is the reason your business must prioritize workplace mental health.
Why Is It Important to Promote Mental Health at Work?
Promotion of mental health in the workplace and offering help to staff members suffering from mental health issues will have a significant influence on an employee’s job satisfaction and output. Let’s talk about a few facts regarding mental health and the workplace:
- In any given year in the United States, 20% of the population suffers from mental illness symptoms.
- According to 61% of respondents, their productivity was affected by their mental health.
- According to 71% of adults in the US, they have experienced at least one stress-related symptom in their lifetime.
- Employers in the United States bear indirect costs related to mental health issues and problems with drugs in the range of $79 to $105 billion yearly.
- Around 18% of employees admitted to experiencing depressive symptoms in 2018 than in 2014.
- Another group of employees claimed that their mental health symptoms were made worse by their workplace.
Wellness initiatives at the workplace can help employees identify staff members who are possibly at risk for mental health issues. Moreover, it can introduce them to opportunities for mental health treatments and provide support to minimize symptoms and improve their overall wellness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highly recommends implementing workplace wellness programs to optimize employee health.
Here are some ways to enhance good mental health at your work:
Encourage Good Mental & Physical Health
Every part of the workplace will benefit when management encourages positive mental and physical health conduct. So, why not give it a go?
Moreover, the importance of the involvement of the management has to be understood. Management should initiate and participate in workplace health challenges, incentive programs, and general wellness initiatives. These programs are favorable for employees’ health improvement, along with obvious savings in healthcare, an increase in productivity, and a boost in confidence.
Have Open Conversations
Encouraging open conversations with your employees about their mental health is one of the most effective ways to improve employee mental wellness. You must remove the stigma linked with admitting work-related stress and overall mental health-related issues. Employees may have scope for progress once they understand they are not alone when the problem is recognized, and it is made a socially acceptable topic of discussion.
Moreover, try encouraging your employees to take breaks, as it is a practical approach that helps employees return to work feeling refreshed. You can encourage them to take a quick outdoor stroll, stretch, or have a healthy snack when feeling burnt out. Enjoying a few minutes with their co-workers while taking a break from their desks can also improve their mood.
Make Mental Health Resources Available
A company can introduce multiple initiatives to help promote mental wellness in the workplace. Employees will feel supported when they receive valuable tools and coping mechanisms from programs that combine instruction with customized tasks.
Similarly, in the context of an employee’s work experience, mental health reviews can detect several psychological strengths and difficulties. Psychological Well-Being, Resilience, Stress@Work, and Financial Well-Being are some mental health tests that Wellness Checkpoint by Carebook covers. Efficient and relevant mental health programs can be initiated via such tests. Furthermore, it provides a broader picture of the mental health requirements of the workforce.
Offer an Employee Assistance Program
The initial step for most companies that want to improve corporate well-being is the counseling and support provided by EAPs. At this time, 97% of major companies offer EAPs. These companies have prioritized programs targeted at depression, anxiety, chronic stress, burnout, and other mental health concerns in the conversation about mental health. Therefore, employees can talk about their issues without being hesitant.
Build a Pleasant Work Environment
The work environment significantly affects employees’ mental health, productivity, turnover rates, and profitability. Leaders can create a positive work environment by keeping an open-door policy and notifying staff members of company goals, developments, departmental changes, and policies. These can minimize the stress level of the employees, increase trust, and provide access to proper guidance.
Top-down policy changes such as flex time, which enables employees to take care of personal matters and engage in physical activities during work hours, and remote and hybrid work possibilities, can also be advantageous to your work environment.
Show That You Care
Prominent worksite wellness specialist Dee Edington believes that caring is a vital part of a company when individuals and teams of similar opinions have empathy and care for the values and circumstances of other individuals and teams. Caring clearly impacts personal and professional connections while we offer and receive it. Those who work as professionals in the health, wellness, and well-being sectors come across care daily.
Organizing family-friendly functions and community service days, praising extraordinary employer-employee partnerships, and uplifting management and staff perspectives in local gatherings and activities are all a few instances in which your company can show its care for the community in which it operates.
Bottom Line
Mental health matters, particularly when it comes to work. In general, it can directly impact the lives of your employees and their families. In addition, it may affect their productivity, earnings, and the overall success of your company. Promoting mental health is not hard since there are readily available resources to help you do so and reasons backed up by research for speaking out for it. Keep in mind that happy employees equal a happy workplace!
