Mental Health Matters: Here’s How to Support It In The Workplace
May 1st brings more than Mayday and May flowers - it’s also the start of Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to acknowledge and elevate the lived experiences of Americans who have mental health and behavioral health conditions. According to 2023 data from Mental Health America, that’s 21% of Americans (roughly 50 million people), a full 55% of whom haven’t received any treatment.
May is also a time to support reflection and to encourage change. Employers absolutely have a stake in supporting their employees’ mental health and well-being, especially when considering the top reasons that people don’t seek treatment as outlined in the below graph.
Data: Mental Health America
The number of Americans living with a mental health condition like anxiety or depression is, unfortunately, not surprising. Neither is the fact that many don’t get the treatments they need - treatments that we know work. Employers have a unique opportunity, however, to move from awareness to action, and our non-exhaustive list of suggestions can help.
1) Be a Role Model
If you’re a manager who is consistently burning the midnight oil, pushing your vacation to “when things slow down,” or taking meetings and sending emails during “off” hours, your employees are very likely going to feel that this is the behavior that’s expected of them. Even if your words say something else, actions speak louder.
Ensure you’re vocally setting and maintaining boundaries (yes, you should put your weekly yoga class or child’s soccer match on your calendar) and articulating the self-care steps you personally take (for example, starting meetings with a prompt like, “How did you fully unplug this weekend?”) Your employees will see you setting the standard for authentic work-life balance and follow suit.
2) Invest in Training
Prioritizing proactive and preventative workplace mental health training for employees at all levels of your organization is a smart move. Trainings that help build and teach the importance of a psychologically safe culture are a vital component of debunking myths and reducing stigma around mental health. They also provide a common language and framework to have productive conversations about mental health at work.
Side note: Agile provides trainings for teams and managers that are specifically designed to address mental health through the building of a culture of psychological safety.
3) Hang Up Your Old Handbook
Modifying old policies is an important task for all companies every few years, especially if it’s been a minute since anything has changed in the document guiding your employee culture and norms. We wrote a post about company policies that need to change in 2023, but the here’s the TL;DR read version: Consider what your handbook says about flexible hours, parental leave, and bereavement leave. Do those policies align with supporting employees’ mental health? Do they reflect who you want to be as an organization? If not, time to make a change!
4) Institute a Mentorship Program
Establishing formal programs for more junior employees to receive regular coaching, support, and learning opportunities from more senior staff (aka: mentorship) is one of the most impactful way that your organization can support employees, especially those who identify as women and people of color. Studies show that this type of informal guidance is invaluable. For example, a Wharton study found that 25% of people who participated in a mentorship program saw a bump in salary, compared to 5% of those who didn’t receive the opportunity.
Companies with formal mentorship programs increase retention, as well as employee satisfaction. Add in the fact that mentees and mentors are promoted at significantly greater rates, and it isn’t surprising that 71% of Fortune 500 companies have mentorship programs in place.
5) Encourage Social Connections
When people are low in social connection at work, they experience increased mental health symptoms, including higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and burnout. This is more common in folks who are working remotely or in a hybrid situation, and so employers of this type are smart to consider small, connection-building moments that they can bake into the day.
These moments don’t need to be huge (although a virtual game night can be a lot of fun as long as it’s not mandatory!) to be impactful. Start your 1:1 check-in by authentically asking and listening to how an employee is doing. Connect people at the organization and encourage they get coffee. Add a fun warmer question to the top of your weekly team meeting. Taken together, these moments of social connection can have a big impact on mental health.
6) Walk the Walk
Remember those people who need treatment and don’t get it? And how 48% of them don’t get it because it’s too expensive? Ensuring mental health is part of your benefits package is no longer a “nice to have.” Many companies are now offering employee assistance programs (EAPs) that provide counseling and other support services for mental health concerns. Even better, employers are getting creative with strategies that deliver meaningful help to their employees; for example, adding mental health first aid trainings and self-care days into paid time off (PTO) packages.
Interested in implementation?
As a neurodiverse, women-owned and led-team, Agile Talent has plenty of experience in supporting employee mental health. Reach out today to learn how we can help improve your employee experience (and your ROI.)
