Introduction
Mental health has gained much attention these days with ongoing work stress and personal issues. It not only impacts the individuals but also larger communities and organizations. When someone is at the workplace and is not mentally healthy then it can have a significant impact on their overall well-being, employee engagement, and productivity. Though it becomes crucial to manage stress to boost productivity at work.
Hence it is quite important for employers to ensure that they take complete care of well being of the employees and provide a great work environment that makes them feel good. In this blog, we would discuss the key role of stay mentally Healthy in the workplace and strategies to follow as an employer to promote mental well-being among workers.
The Significance of the Mental Health in the Workplace.
As we discussed earlier Mental health is quite an important aspect of the complete well-being of an individual and it plays a significant role in the workplace. An employee having a mental health problem can lead to a reduction in productivity, higher turnover rates, increased absenteeism, and much more. Whereas if the employee has a supportive and positive work environment it can promote their mental well-being and can increase job satisfaction, work productivity, and increased engagement.
When COVID-19 was discovered, it brought a lot of challenges for the employees and their well-being at their offices. Financial stress, social isolation, and remote working have caused significant impacts on the mental health of employees in general. Employers or HR departments should have complete information about challenges faced by the employees and help them to have great well-being.
One of the employers’ strategies to be followed is promoting mental health
Talking about mental health and employees’ well-being can be really useful for you and your employees. Taking the proactive approach and implementing some of the strategies listed below can help you to promote the mental well-being of the employees. In the following section, we would discuss some of the most useful strategies that would help you to promote mental health at the workplace.
#1. Form a culture that promotes inclusivity and openness
As an employer one should encourage their employees to discuss openly their well-being and mental health by creating a culture that promotes inclusivity and openness. To achieve this, one can organize open communication events and regular check-ins. More one can also offer resources and support to the employees to help them get better with their mental health concerns.
#2. Promote Work-Life Balance
Employers should encourage their employees to take time off whenever they need it and promote a healthy active lifestyle with proper balance. Some of the strategies one can adopt are regular breaks throughout the day, paid time off, and flexible working arrangements.
#3. Promote healthy eating and physical Activity
Encourage employees to eat healthily, and engage themselves in physical activity to maintain a healthy lifestyle and diet. Giving sponsorships to healthy food options, healthy living spaces, and fitness classes can easily help employers to achieve this.
#4. Address any harassment or discrimination
Create a strict policy against harassment and discrimination in the workplace. This can be achieved by making a safe working environment for the workers to report any such incidents, organizing a complete training program on harassment and discrimination, take strict actions to address such issues or incidents. It is quite important to have a healthy and safe environment to ensure the mental well-being of the employees.
#5. Promoting training for employees and mental health education
Offering training and educational sessions to employees and managers about mental health issues could help them to understand better their mental health issues. For example, training about how to know if they are suffering from mental health problems could help them a lot to get support and have conversations with their colleagues.
#6. Mental Health Assessments and Screenings
Providing regular assessments and screenings about mental health can help the employees to know the issues quite early. As an employer, you can provide them with a complete assessment or some counseling sessions with professionals to know about their problems and help them to overcome those.
#7. Offer flexible Work Arrangements
Remote working and flexible work arrangements can help to fulfill employees’ needs and enhance their overall well-being. As an employer, you can have a hybrid mode of work such as working from home and working from the office periodically with flexible hours. This can give employees extra time to take care of their families and fulfill certain responsibilities. Providing flexible working hours can help employees to manage their personal responsibilities and work.
#8. Resources And Support
Being an employer you can provide support and resources to employees who are going through mental health issues. You can connect employees with mental health experts, provide certain services, ask them to join supports group, and much more. By providing sufficient resources and support, an employer can easily promote their mental well-being.
#9. Employee Assistance Program
The Employee Assistance program includes several support services and confidential counseling that employers can offer to employees who are dealing with work-related issues or personal. Most of these program includes group therapy, individual therapy, as well as the referral services for financial and legal issues. EAPs are quite useful for people who are dealing with mental health ailments as it provides them a safe and trusted place for employees to talk about their problems and receive support.
Final Verdict
Promoting the mental health and well-being of the employees is quite imperative along with moral responsibility. There are different strategies like those given above that employers can adopt the offer healthy well-being to the employees by providing them mental support, encouraging work-life balance, Employee Wellness programs, and addressing harassment and discrimination.
By implementing such strategies employers can promote a healthy environment and provide employees the complete satisfaction, helping them to increase productivity and increase engagement. Offering mental health in the workplace is quite important and employers should take a proactive approach to implement different strategies to ensure their employees are mentally fit.
Author’s Bio:
Prashant Pujara is the CEO of MultiQoS Technologies, top Golang Development Company In India with experience in on demand Marketplace App Development Solutions where you can Hire Cross Platform App Developer India for your business.
