3 Ways to Promote Mental Health Awareness in the Workplace
If you want to work on mental health awareness inside your organization, the first thing that you need to realize is that these types of conversations are profoundly affected by company culture.
No matter how robust your mental health benefits are, nothing will change if employees are too afraid or too ashamed to take advantage of them. Changing these attitudes requires a top-down approach that costs close to nothing but asks managers to be more involved and lead by example.
Our research found that employees need a more accepting and open culture, additional training, and a personal approach when it comes to mental health. So, how can you help employees who are struggling with mental health problems?
1. Create awareness by involving leadership
Even in close-knit work environments, employees are often terrified to discuss their mental health challenges. However, this changes when their seniors lead by example. When executive team members, managers, and even the CEO all start openly talking about mental health issues, it breaks down barriers and reduces the stigma.
Here are some things that you’ll want to consider implementing in your organization:
Publicize your company’s commitment to mental wellbeing — use your company’s training materials and social media posts to talk about what you’re doing to support mental health awareness initiatives. Then promote the initiatives in place your employees can take advantage of.
Ask executives to share their experiences openly — every one of us has a poor mental health story, including top managers and CEOs. Ask those top-performing people in your organization to share their stories publicly so that your line employees know they’re not alone and to encourage them to ask for help if they need it.
Empower mental health champions — you probably have employees in your company who are not afraid to speak up about their struggles. Shine a spotlight on them and, if they’re willing, ask them to share their stories both internally and externally.
2. Emphasise the importance of mental health sick days
In recent years, employees have been more ready to take sick days due to mental health issues. However, most are still uncomfortable saying that they’re staying home to focus on their mental wellbeing.
While it’s logical for the flu to be the most common reason why employees tend to stay home from work, it makes you wonder how many times “other reasons” or “minor illnesses” have been used to cover up depression and anxiety. After all, it’s often much simpler to email the boss and say that you’re feeling a bit under the weather than to say that you’re going through a full-blown panic attack and need to take the day off to recover from it.
3. Educate and train managers on mental health issues
In addition to shining a spotlight on mental health issues and providing a safe space for employees to talk about them, your most important job is educating managers on the subject.
The goal here is not for managers to become therapists — they cannot, and should not, give mental health advice to employees. However, they should know how to recognize common symptoms, how to navigate difficult conversations, and how to emphatically and inclusively talk about mental health.
What they should not do is brush aside or ignore an employee’s mental health concern because that’s equivalent to workplace mobbing and can cause struggling employees to feel unsupported and their problems to spiral out of control.
Mental health workshops, group or one-on-one training with mental health professionals can be a great help for managers to gain insight into the most common symptoms and the tools to deal with them.
References:
https://www.ambassify.com/blog/mental-health-employee-engagement-3-ways-to-promote-mental-health-awareness-in-the-workplace