5 simple and easy ways to prioritise employee mental health
Did you know, the average person will spend 92,120 hours of their life working? We’re not saying this to make you quit your job and go skydiving, we’re telling you to help you understand the importance of prioritising employee mental health in your workplace.
Just think about it, if an employee is miserable at work most of the time, that’s 92,120 hours of their life that they’re unhappy. That’s a disturbing thought, wouldn’t you agree?
Prioritising employee mental health doesn’t just mean providing counselling or support when they’re already down. It means putting preventive measures in place to ensure they are happy and remain happy in the time that they are working with you. It’s about providing your employees with a place of work that is supportive, motivating, inspiring and uplifting.
In this article, we’ll uncover the 10 best ways to prioritise employee mental health.
The strategies apply to anyone who manages employees, no matter what industry they work in.
We’ll uncover the reasons why employees get down at work and solutions to help you prevent them from feeling unhappy.
Why is the prioritisation of employee mental health so important?
Everyone knows the famous quote from Richard Branson “If you look after your employees they’ll look after your customers.” It has gained so much popularity because quite simply, it is true. The prioritisation of employee mental health isn’t just great for the wellbeing of your staff, it’s remarkable for the performance of your business.
In fact, the Mental Health website states that better mental health support in the workplace can save UK businesses up to £8 billion per year. You will notice a reduced number of sick days per year and your employee engagement levels will rise significantly.
If you want better customer service, motivated employees and increased profits then read on to discover 5 ways to prioritise mental health in your workplace.
#1 Find out what your employee’s current state of mental health at work is
Trying to prioritise mental health in the workplace before you’ve even asked your employees how they’re feeling, is like baking a cake without looking at a recipe. You have no foundation to build your efforts upon.
A simple way to find out the current state of employee mental health across your business is to send out an anonymous questionnaire. Use the questions from this article 70 questions to ask employees about their mental health and gather the feedback.
Once you’ve analysed the answers you’ll have a good understanding of how your employees are generally feeling on a day to day basis.
#2 Introduce rules to prevent employee burnout
According to a ‘stress at work’ NIOSH report, 40% of workers reported their job was very or extremely stressful and 26% of workers said they were “often or very often burned out or stressed by their work.
With this in mind, it’s essential that you set boundaries in your workplace to prevent your employees from feeling overworked and burned out.
What boundaries are essential to put in place?
Introduce employee communication cut off times - Set a time in the morning and let your employees know that they mustn’t send work-related communications before this time. Set another time in the evening, letting everyone know that work-related communications after this time are forbidden. This ensures that your employees can totally switch off outside of work hours, not being hounded or worried about work tasks.
Limit meetings for super busy employees - There is nothing worse when you know you’ve got a tonne of work to do but you have to sit through endless meetings. It makes it harder and harder to tick those jobs off your to-do list and your stress levels begin to rise a worrying amount. To reduce stress for employees be mindful of their workload and let them know they can sit out of meetings to help them get on with work.
Have a maximum amount of hours which are allowed to be worked in a day - We know that from time to time employees will have to work overtime to get a job done. However, if this is happening all the time it’s a huge problem that will dramatically impact your employee’s mental health. Set a limit on the number of hours allowed to work each day. For example, 8 hours maximum. This will ensure your employees always have a good work-life balance and they don’t get burned out.
#3 Introduce health and wellbeing apps to your employees
If you’re new to the prioritisation of employee mental health, you probably aren’t ready to fork out tonnes of cash for an expensive wellbeing programme. Luckily for you, there are lots of top-quality apps on the market that your employees can you use for free. What a lot of companies do is pay for a subscription to support the premium versions when they know which app their employees like the most.
Here is a list of the most popular mental-health apps out there.
Headspace - This app claims you can live a healthier, happier, more well-rested life in just a few minutes a day. Perfect for busy employees who don’t have lots of time.
Calm - According to Calm, they are the #1 app for sleep and meditation. Helping people sleep better, lowering stress, and reducing anxiety.
Moodfit - This app describes itself as fitness for your mental health. It gives your employees daily goals, tools & insights to reduce stress and build up the fitness of their mental health.
MoodMission - This evidence-based app was designed to help people overcome feelings of depression and anxiety by discovering new and better ways of coping.
Happify - This platform offers science-based activities and games to eliminate negative thoughts and stresses.
#4 Introduce management training to improve employee mental health
According to research from Metlife, nearly 7 in 10 (69%) employees say the behaviour of managers in their organisation has increased their stress levels. This is predominantly the reason why many people say ‘employees don’t leave their company they leave their manager’.
Unfortunately, lots of people get promoted into a managerial role or set up a new business with no idea on how to effectively manage people. This can mean they lack empathy and focus more on results rather than treating their employees as humans.
To ensure your managers know how to effectively manage, lead, inspire and motivate their employees it’s essential that you provide them with the right training.
Types of training to consider;
Mental wellbeing training for managers - Just type that phrase into google and you’ll be given a list of resources including online courses which your managers can do.
Leadership training - This type of training is great for giving your managers the skills they need to coach and motivate your employees.
Employee engagement training - Too many managers are rubbish at engaging employees and making them feel valued and appreciated. Introduce employee engagement training to sharpen their knowledge.
#5 Assess and change your company culture
A positive and supportive working environment is crucial when prioritising employee mental health. If your employees are always gossiping and creating a hostile working environment, the chances are that the majority of your employees aren’t going to feel very happy when they come to work.
We created an article that looked at Asos’s work culture. When analysing the comments we found that even though a large proportion of reviews mentioned the people as being a great benefit to their company, it was hard to ignore comments that highlighted cliques, office politics and blame cultures within their organisation. This demonstrated that if employees weren’t accepted by the groups within their business then they could feel excluded and lack a sense of belonging.
As you can imagine the type of environment mentioned above is disastrous for employee mental health. So what can you do if you think you have this type of company culture?
List out the behaviours that you want to change. Write down why you want them to change and what behaviours would you like to see instead?
Hold a company-wide meeting which lets all employees know the changes that you would like to see.
Get buy-in from managers. Ensure that they are going to implement the changes and take action if they see employees falling back into old habits.
Start rewarding employees who embody your new values and culture. For example, if you want employees to be more supportive and you notice an employee helping a colleague out when they are stressed, reward them.
Start prioritising employee mental health today
These are just some small changes you can make to start prioritising employee mental health. They may not seem that drastic but these tiny tweaks can make a big difference to the way your employees feel.
Now you’re ready to show your team that you value and respect their well-being. Why not start today and make the changes needed to look after your employees and their mental health.
