The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and a key focus is Health and Wellness. Creating a healthy workplace for our employees is critical. Mental health is particularly important. The greater the better the mental health of your employees, the more productive they’ll be. The following contributed post is therefore entitled, Promoting Better Mental Health in the Workplace.
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The way your employees feel when they are at work con Impact on your business. It can affect productivity, communications and safety issues. Promoting a good atmosphere for them to work in will help with a good mental attitude in the workplace, and as an employer, you should be taking steps to make sure this is the case for your staff.
If you fail to do so, depression and anxiety could mean a lot of extra sick days, which will make your business less successful and harder to run. Your employees can be your most valuable assets and investing in them is vitally important for the future of your business.
Create A Healthy Workplace
This is easy to do by sometimes making just a few simple adjustments to your workplace and the way you treat your employees. Make sure that the environment they are in is a healthy temperature and that the air is fresh, Just these two things are a great start to making them feel better about themselves.
Do not expect them to work all day in your workplace and then go home and do even more work. Most people spend about one-third of their life in work and that is long enough. Expecting them to work a 60-hour week or to deal with emails and queries from home is not only unfair, but it will also make them feel discontented and that their efforts while at work are not appreciated.
Make sure they take their breaks and have somewhere that they can socialize for them. Some social interaction is a great way of relieving stress and they will return to their workstations more alert and ready to work.
Some experts, including Cynthia Telles of Kaiser Permanente, have spent years researching and dealing with these matters, and their opinions are very highly respected. She has been involved in several programs that aimed to improve the mental health of employees in all walks of life.
Help Employees Identify Mental Health Problems
It is thought that in the US, one in four employees suffers from mental health problems to some degree and that most of them suffer in silence. This is in part because many of them do not recognize the cause of their problem and think it because of aging, the menopause or any one of a number of other things. Some workers think it is normal to feel this way and you need to help them identify when the way they are felling is not part of normal stress.
Helping them to recognize the symptoms and the triggers is one of the most effective things an employer can do for their workforce. You could invite a mental health expert to your business to give them a talk on what to look for and how to deal with it. There are confidential mental health screenings available and sometimes a questionnaire about their habits and symptoms can be very enlightening for someone that has been trained in these matters. There are also free online screening tools that you could encourage them to use.
The whole point is that a happy workforce will be more productive and produce a better quality of work. The time taken to ensure that none of your employees are suffering from mental health problems because of their job, or that none happen in the future, could save you a lot of time, effort and money ion the long run.
Assist Them With Their Treatments
Most mental health issues are very treatable, but they may need some time to seek the help they need. Letting them leave work for weekly therapy sessions that are during business hours for example, could prevent that employ from being off work long-term while they are treated.
Most employers would not have a qualm in calling for help if an employee becomes physically ill while they are at work, but those same bosses will totally ignore mental health issues. There is still something of a stigma attached to mental health problems, but many of them could have been prevented to start with. To the sufferer, they are just as bad and sometimes worse, than a physical illness and they deserve the same care and attention as someone who is having a heart attack while sitting at their desk.
If you any idea that a member of your staff may be becoming depressed or anxious while they are at work, speak with them or get someone else trusted to, and suggest that they seek treatment before it gets even worse.
