Recently, mental health has come to the forefront of human resource offices everywhere. Mental health in the workplace means different things for employers and employees, but the overarching goals remain the same for both. When employees can work in peace, employers see higher productivity and lower turnover. To get the full picture, Top Applicant’s hiring experts took a deep dive into our own companies to find the most crucial aspects of building a healthy, productive culture. Here is what we found.
For Employees
Getting employees to open up about mental health to their manager is often difficult. But as employers discuss mental health matters, being open and responsive to feedback is important on both sides. To put your mental health first as an employee, it’s important to understand how your personal health affects your professional life.
Why Your Mental Health Matters
If you’re living with depression, anxiety, or other disorders, being open about your condition is crucial, no matter how hard it is to talk about. Companies around the world are experiencing quiet quitting, strikes, and walkouts due to the toxic environments their employees work in. So as you clock in and out, watch out for these warning signs when it comes to your mental health in the workplace.
Warning Signs
1. Time Management Issues
Deadlines may seem tighter than ever, but they only snowball if you don’t do anything about them! If you’re days or weeks behind on your work, it can feel like you’re never going to be caught up. This can lead to feelings of dread, sleepless nights, and increased anxiety or depression. Everyone gets stressed at work, but if you’re under a mountain of deadlines, your mental health in the workplace can quickly spiral out of control if left unchecked.
2. Never Off the Clock
When you’re spiraling, it can be hard to disconnect from your stressors. To try to tackle that mountain of stress and work, it can be easy to forget other parts of your life. If dinner table conversations always lead to work, or those Sunday scaries keep getting scarier, you’re never fully clocked out. Studies show that a majority of our employees admit to having anxiety about work when they’re not at work. This is not only a scary statistic; it’s a gateway to productivity-killing personal habits.
3. Toxic Habits
Personal habits done off the clock are not typically of concern to an employer. However, those habits have nasty ways of reflecting on mental health in the workplace. We’ve all had a day that called for a stress reliever, but for some employees, self-control is next to impossible when mental health is at an all-time low. Habits like binge drinking and substance abuse can lead to compounding negative mental health, resulting in everything from a dramatic drop in productivity to suicide.
Proactive Approaches
To protect yourself as an employee and as a person, it’s crucial to know how to deal with negative mental health in the workplace. Here is where over half a decade of managerial experience comes in handy as our experts discuss effective mitigation strategies with our employees.
Talking It Out
In many cases, communication is often the most overlooked tool when it comes to promoting mental health in the workplace. Common barriers for communication are closed doors, tight schedules, and a lack of connection across various departments. It can be incredibly hard to talk to managers if depression and anxiety are impacting your self-worth. However, it will only get worse if you don’t address the situation.
To talk about mental health with your employer, remember to stay as professional as possible. Your manager truly may not know what’s wrong until you tell them, so we urge you to schedule time to talk with your manager with a human resources representative present. Your mental health matters to more than just your job. If you feel like there’s no one to turn to, we suggest filing a formal complaint to your HR department or OSHA as a last resort. If you’re experiencing a mental health crisis, dial 988 to get help immediately.
Breathe, Then Continue
These simple words are important to employees at every level of a company. Even after talking things through, you still have to deal with those negative emotions and the situation that led to them. Being persistent is sometimes the hardest thing to do when you’re facing negative mental health in the workplace, but getting through hell takes one step at a time for everyone. Chances are that even your manager is dealing with negative emotions, situations, and outcomes on a daily basis as well. So here’s how everyone can take a breather effectively.
At work, you may be sitting, but feel free to stand if possible. Place both feet flat on the ground roughly hip-width apart. Focus on planting your presence from the tips of your toes, and try to maintain a comfortable, correct posture. When you have all that down, take a deep breath in through your nose, fill your belly with air, and exhale slowly through your mouth. Count to 5 as you inhale and exhale, and keep that rhythm for at least 5 minutes. Trust us, we’ve been there too—you will get through this, even if you need some help to do it.
Get Professional Help
There’s no substitute for a mental health professional if you’re dealing with ongoing depression and anxiety. Even if discussing your situation with human resources is hard, ask your representative about available resources and coverages to ensure you get the help you need. Every day, thousands of employees overlook provisions and perks that could save their mental health and money!
Talking with a mental health professional can help you learn many things about yourself, both personally and professionally, but don’t expect things to change overnight. Progress takes time, so give yourself and your workplace some grace as you improve your mental health and your situation. As you navigate mental health in the workplace, it’s important to understand that your employer is learning and growing just as much as you are. That’s why our hiring experts are always expanding our knowledge to improve their own workplaces.
For Employers
The people managing employees are just as responsible for mental health in the workplace as employees are. In the ecosystem of offices, warehouses, or wherever you work, we all have an impact on each other, so make yours a positive one! All over the country, there are toxic workplaces with high turnover rates that put profits over people. However, a new day is dawning for employers as employees gain more control over their environments.
The largest movement happening in the workplace currently is putting mental health first for millions of employees. Before you think your company is doing “just fine,” see what our hiring experts are learning about their own practices from their employees.
Mental Health = Morale
We’ll skip the cheesy lines you’ve probably heard from your last seminar or speaker, but we won’t discount the truth in connecting mental health with team morale. Mental health is often construed as being happy and nothing more. While it’s easy to put employees into two categories, mental health in the workplace presents a spectrum of emotions related to everyday tasks. Stress is a silent killer in any business when it comes to building and maintaining morale between departments. So here are a few ways to recognize adverse mental health amongst your team:
Red Flags
1. Higher Turnover Than Usual
It’s a fact of life that there are many industries with high turnover rates by trade. However, if you’re needing to hire for the same positions over and over, it may not just be your industry. When our experts talked about mental health in the workplace with our employees, we found that an overwhelming amount of them attributed their co-workers leaving to diminished mental health.
This is not only incredibly hard to hear as an employer, but it’s also incredibly important to keep in mind as you reevaluate your retention plan. Studies show that a vast majority of employees who changed jobs or careers during the great resignation did so to preserve their mental health.
2. Low Involvement
Are you seeing the same people at your happy hours, or noticing a decline in employee involvement during company gatherings? You may be gaslighting yourself into believing that they’re just dedicated, when in fact your employees are burning out. We’re all for productivity, but low involvement in company activities can mean high stress or anxiety among your employees.
3. Employees Becoming Islands
No one is an island in any company. Take a good look around at your team. Are they talking to each other, or are they actively avoiding each other as they chip away at hours of work? Physical and implied barriers to communication can lead to diminished mental health that can show up in many different ways, as mentioned above. This is why building bridges and managing workloads is crucial to the mental health of your employees and the bottom line of your business.
How to Put People First
Seeing your employees as people instead of numbers on paper is always important. At the backdrop of one of the worst rashes of employee strikes in history, it’s clearer now more than ever why. Billions of dollars and millions of jobs are at stake every day across the United States, and the greatest equalizer amongst every employee at every level is mental health. Investing in your employees’ mental health is one of the wisest investments you can make for the life of your business. So start with these best practices to see a return on your greatest investment.
Open Doors, Open Dialogues.
If you’re reading this from the comfort of your corner office, we have some bad news for you. If you’re not connecting with your people, you’re missing out on crucial insights to your business. Open-door policies are not always easy to do, but even if you can’t talk to everyone, make an effort to circle back when your employees need you. This is a good rule of thumb for managers and staff of all levels. When there’s more conversation, your entire company is better connected and more productive.
Recognize Burnout
Clear communication is also crucial to understanding the mental health of your employees. If your employees are exhibiting any of the common signs of burnout, it’s imperative to take action if possible. To mitigate common causes of burnout, we suggest keeping a close eye on workload, average task completion times, and hours worked. Your employees may be amazing at what they do, but 12-hour days should be an exception, not an expectation. Too many long days and late nights drive quitting, strikes, and other negative outcomes that cost your business money and valuable employees.
Prioritize Personality and Productivity
When you hire an employee, do you only consider their professional history? If so, you’re missing out on half of the person! Your HR department will let you know about personal adversities such as felony convictions and concessions for disabilities, but it’s up to you to make sure your employees are personally a good fit for your company culture as well. Icebreaker exercises are great ways to get to know the people behind your positions, but prioritizing personality is important during the hiring process as well.
The Humans Behind Better Human Resources
With these best practices, you’re not just improving your business; you’re improving the lives of everyone in your workplace. Mental health in the workplace is just as important as the productivity behind your success. So put the human element in the hiring process with Top Applicant. Sign up to build your profile and post your first job for free!
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