Maintaining the mental health of your employees may seem like an easy task, but it can actually be quite challenging if your company hasn’t set up any regulations that would allow for such maintenance.
Luckily, there is a number of tactics to use to maintain your employees’ mental health, so here are ways you can look after the mental health of your employees.
Check your employees’ mental health regularly
First and foremost, you need to check your employees’ mental health regularly. Before you start doing anything, it’s worth running the very first initial check to see how each of your team members is feeling, what they are struggling with, and how you can help them.
If you notice even a minor issue, it’s best to address it instead of ignoring it because this small problem could quickly develop into a much bigger one. To check your employees’ mental health, conduct regular surveys about their mental well-being.
However, keep in mind that these can be unreliable, so it’s best to still hire a professional who will act as an independent party assessing the mental health of your employees. Though this will require a separate budget (especially when such checks are done regularly), it will still be giving you a more accurate picture of what your employees feel.
Train your employees on mental health matters
Another important step to take is training. Training your employees on the way they should work is common, but not many companies actually take the time to train employees on mental health matters. Some business owners assume this is pointless while others don’t even know about the existence of such training.
However, it’s crucial to keep in mind that not many people actually know how to care about their mental health, so such training is both helpful and necessary. Mental health training sessions need to be treated with particular care to avoid having conflicts while discussing particularly sensitive matters.
That’s why the best thing you can do to have proper training about mental health is to hire experts on the topic and having them train your employees rather than making someone from the HR department do it instead. After all, not every HR employee is qualified to educate others on such topics.
Invite an expert and get a consultation from them
Speaking of inviting specialists from the relevant field, a good way to understand what you can implement in your company in terms of mental health regulations is to invite an expert and get a consultation from them.
A professional in the field will be able to accurately assess your current team members and your company as a whole, identify the strengths and weaknesses of your employees as well as the issues that need to be resolved and will propose possible solutions for these problems.
When choosing an expert to invite, try to find companies that offer such services and will definitely send you a qualified person with a lot of experience.
Make sure that the company has been in business for some time now and has established itself as a reliable provider of expert analysis of employee mental health in various companies, especially reputable ones. This way, you will make sure that you aren’t just hiring whoever to do the job.
Regulate your employees’ workload
One thing that many employees struggle with is motivation. It’s very difficult to be motivated to perform your job well when there is just so much to do and it seems so overwhelming. That’s why it’s so important to regulate your employees’ workload and ensure that they aren’t overworking themselves.
It doesn’t matter if it’s your fault or they are doing it themselves, but you need to make sure that they aren’t taking more than they can do. For example, your SEO specialist could be working with keywords and could find a keyword like “rewrite my paper” very relevant to your website.
However, they were tasked to find ten more synonymous phrases, but they could only find five. By putting in the extra effort to find those five other keyword phrases, the employee could be draining themselves from the energy that they could invest into a different, more important task.
Allow employees to have a flexible schedule
Speaking of the workload, another interesting tactic you can use is allowing employees to have a flexible schedule which will let them better understand how they can work at maximum performance while not sacrificing their physical or mental well-being for it.
A flexible schedule allows your team members to be in control of their own workday and to structure their work accordingly. Some people don’t perform well in the morning but are amazing workers after lunch. Others are the complete opposite.
And some need to have many breaks throughout the day to do their job well. Your team could be made up of all these different kinds of workers which is why having a flexible schedule is the best option – it allows everyone to work at their own pace and perform their work at the highest quality.
Ensure that there are enough breaks during the day
Something that goes directly with the previous point is that you need to ensure that there are enough breaks during the day. It doesn’t matter if your team is made up of workaholics who don’t like resting or workers who enjoy performing their tasks at a leisurely pace – you should have enough breaks in any case.
Having breaks allows your employees to rest for some time and come back to their work with a fresh mind. Breaks are needed to have the necessary intake of food, but they can also be used for exercising which is essential for teams that are mostly made up of employees sitting down throughout the entire day.
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Provide food and drinks in the office
When it comes to eating, not every company understands the needs of their employees correctly. Those that do realise their employees’ needs provide food and drinks in the office to motivate and satisfy their team members. Keeping employees happy throughout the day then helps these employees to not feel depressed or demotivated at work.
For instance, that SEO specialist mentioned earlier could have just finished important keyword research for the phrase “write my dissertation”. They are tired but they know that they must do even more keyword research for other phrases.
A small snack like a candy bar or some dried fruits will give them the burst of energy and happiness that will motivate them to continue their work in a good mood.
Create a mental health support team
Even if you invite an expert for a consultation and run regularly mental health checks on your employees, you still need to have some kind of support available to your employees at any moment. This is when you can create a mental health support team.
A mental health support team not only performs the necessary regular checks but also ensures that all the regulations are there and working. Moreover, employees can talk to a member of the mental health support team when they are feeling down or experiencing hardships at work. It’s like lightweight therapy for your own company.
Allow employees to have necessary day-offs
To keep your employees consistently happy and satisfied, it is not enough to provide them with perks at work because you must also let them have time to rest when it is necessary. Whether it is a vacation or they are feeling sick or there is some kind of matter related to their mental well-being, your employees must be able to take a day off.
Of course, you can still have rules for when a day-off is permitted and when it isn’t, but the best thing you can do is create at least a feeling that your team members can take a day-off at any moment.
This will motivate them to work because they won’t be feeling like they are trapped and don’t have the ability to rest as much as they would like to.
Treat every employee as an individual
Last but not least, you should remember to treat every employee as an individual rather than addressing them all as just a single entity. As mentioned earlier, you will have many different types of employees working in your company – and it’s best that you approach them differently based on their needs.
Some employees need more verbal encouragement while others thrive without it. Some perform well when they have a monetary incentive while others just need a snack break. Everyone’s needs are different which is why you need to treat these people as such.
In Summary
All in all, your employees’ mental health state can vary from person to person, but it is important to remember that all of them need the right support to perform well at their jobs. Maintaining your employees’ mental health is essential both for their well-being and for the success of your business.
About the Author
Melissa Mauro is a self-improvement author who is always interested in new projects. She wants to create her own writer brand, that’s why Melissa is looking for fresh platforms for the implementation of her ideas. Creativity and unique style make it possible to deliver valuable and engaging content to her ideal reader.
