The topic of mental health and wellbeing has been receiving the required importance for the last few years. A lot of celebrities and famous names accepted that they had mental health issues and they had to seek help. People are now trying to break the taboo attached to mental health and discuss it more openly.
Global disaster in the form of the Covid pandemic has raised the anxiety levels and also caused an increase in mental health issues due to work from home & isolation.
Most employees are anxious about job security and health-related issues. Companies on the other hand are struggling with financial and operational issues. Cost-cutting is on the agenda for most companies. It would sound absurd if someone said, this is the right time to invest in employee mental health welfare. But experts the world across argue that investing in mental health makes business sense, now more than ever.
Taking care of the mental health of your employees is going to make your business more competitive – Mark Henick, Mental Health Strategist
Let us look at the benefits of investing in the mental health of employees before we explore what you can do to implement mental health welfare strategy in your organisation.
- Employees feel taken care of – While most companies have policies that take care of physical wellbeing, mental health is often ignored. Employees value companies that have policies that work towards improving employee happiness & mental wellbeing. It shows that the company cares for the employee’s well-being.
- Improve productivity & retention – It goes without saying that happy & healthy employees would translate to higher productivity and efficiency. Employees with good mental health will also prone to make lesser mistakes, be more creative & innovative. Employees also are more loyal and tend to stick around longer in companies where they feel their wellbeing is valued.
- Improve company image – Your commitment towards employee mental health helps you stand out and create a great image. This also helps in attracting & retaining top talent.
Now that it is amply clear that investing in mental health offers many benefits, let us look at ways in which your organisation can invest in mental health welfare.
- Talk about it & remove the stigma
There is a huge stigma attached to mental illness and hence many suffer in silence rather than talking to someone and taking the help. The first step towards better mental health would require creating an environment where people feel free to talk about their mental health and problems.
Managers and leaders can start by sharing their stories and encouraging people to come forward and speak up about their issues.
- Create a platform to address issues
Create online communities and forums where discussion & conversations regarding mental health wellbeing are made. Especially in the current situation where a majority of employees are working from home, feeling isolated and lonely, it would help to create an online community where the feeling of belonging is nurtured.
This platform, where employees share the stories of their daily struggle and how they are coping up, can help create a sense of community and helps the employees know they are in it together.
- Create wellness programmes and offer benefits
Using technology, companies can create virtual programmes that are available to everyone and at the same time, they are discreet and reachable anytime via text messages, online counselling, or talking to doctors via video calls.
Companies can also look at reducing the stress of working from home while managing children by offering childcare benefits. Offering online wellness programmes like yoga and meditation to help employees deal with stress and isolation is also a small step towards creating a healthy workforce.
One important thing to keep in mind while designing or offering the benefits is that it should be scalable and available to everyone across the organisation. It is also important to create awareness about the programme and how employees can avail of the programmes and benefits.
There are a lot of great benefits of focusing on mental health in your organisation. Use the above tips to start your mental health welfare programme today.
