Boosting mental wellness through cultural change

Brittany Barhite at Firstup lays out the practical steps that organisations can take to support the mental health of their employees

 

Burnout in the corporate world has always been a “thing” and is well-documented. The pandemic has, of course, exacerbated the situation by further disrupting the work-life balance – as people have tried to cope with an ‘always on’ work environment, loss of motivation, healthcare worries for self and family, and such.

 

The World Health Organisation has called it pandemic fatigue. The ensuing Great Resignation movement is a clear indication that across industry sectors, the pandemic has changed people’s priorities – health, well-being, and personal happiness, at least for the short term future, trumps even the most highly-competitive salaries.

 

We shouldn’t be surprised – the average person spends over a third of their lives at work. Working in an unhappy, unsatisfactory and/or unrewarding environment becomes unsustainable after a while.

 

Our recent survey of 23,105 global respondents across the UK, United States, Germany, Nordic countries and Benelux, backed this up. We found that despite all the talk about mental health support, this is not translating into practical solutions for employees.

 

In fact, 17% of employees believe that their employer does not support their mental health - making them feel worthless. Some employees even describe their place of work as uncomfortable, unfamiliar, or unfriendly. 19% of respondents felt that their employer only started showing interest in supporting their mental health since the pandemic, and 22% felt that their employer has the intention to support their mental health, but yet they don’t feel supported.

 

There were also some concerns around communication, with 38% wanting their employers to create a better line of communication between executives and employees and 20% wanting company communications and messages delivered to the places where they spend their workday.  It is clear that broad brush, generic communications need to give way to more personalised methods.

 

In order to truly support their employees’ mental health, organisations will do well to recognise that in this new work environment, their staff faces new challenges – which, in-turn, means that companies must actively revisit their employee communications, policies, and engagement to provide meaningful support.

 

There are some logical and practical approaches that organisations can take to address these issues:

 

Understand what employees do each day. Senior management needs to have an in-depth understanding of what their employees’ job roles are and exactly what they involve. Only then can they assign realistic workloads that are achievable in a 40 hour week – and intervene in a timely manner if staff are overwhelmed or overloaded. Furthermore, obvious as it may sound, priorities are best set by discussing project deliverables in consultation with the employees on the team. Such conversations are crucial to avoiding misunderstandings. Often, what employees consider as essential may be thought of as ‘nice to haves’ and not business critical by managers.

 

Candid conversations. Providing opportunities for frank conversations where employees can feel comfortable and safe discussing mental health issues is crucial. Many mental health experts will corroborate that sometimes just being able to voice worries to an empathetic listener can ease anxiety. Thereafter, managers and employees can agree on the best course of action – be that reducing workload, giving time off, or any other measures. 

 

Walk the talk. It’s imperative that business leaders and senior managers remain committed and true to their word when it comes to engaging with employees. The survey found that while leaders often say they believe in an open-door policy, employees don’t necessarily see a true “open door”.  Additionally, employees feel that they would have a better experience if they had visibility into the company’s decision-making and its direction of travel. This is understandable. Often it’s the fear of the unknown that is the biggest cause of anxiety and stress, and transparency from leadership can go a long way in allaying concerns that employees might have.

 

Supporting care-giver employees. Whether employees are caring for children or relatives with support needs, with employees attending global meetings during early mornings and late nights, offering flexible hours can allow them to have an actual eight-hour work day. This is critical in helping employees maintain their work-life balance and have some semblance of distinction between work and home. In the study, 29% of respondents said that they would welcome more flexible working hours within the working week, to allow them to juggle the demands of kids, a two-income household, and the now endless workday.

 

Time off MEANS time off. Companies need to respect their employees’ personal and professional boundaries. For instance, in this Firstup study, 20% of respondents state that internal emails should not be sent after working hours and 25% of respondents want designated mental health days. These measures need to be enforced to the letter, but more importantly in the spirit that they are created.

 

Ultimately cultural change needs to be driven from the top, and business leaders need to lead by example.  When employees see their managers prioritising their own wellness, they are more likely to be comfortable doing the same. It demonstrates to them that mental health and employee wellbeing are genuine objectives of the company.

 

Fundamentally, what all this means is that companies need to make positive employee experience a top priority. And in today’s digital world, adopting technology offers the best chance of making this business priority a success by enabling an employee experience that is personalised for the needs of individuals – which then cumulatively leads to productivity that contributes to business growth.

 

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Brittany Barhite is Communications Director at Firstup

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com