Introduction
When you read the words mental health disorder, who is the first person that comes to mind? Perhaps you have a loved one grappling with these issues. Perhaps you yourself are one of the billions of people whose mental health has deteriorated as a result of 2020’s occurrences.i
What if I told you that mental health issues, including those caused by the tiny COVID-19 virus, have cost our global economy one trillion dollars in lost productivity, ii and that more than one-third of employees do nothing to manage their feelings of hopelessness, stress, depression, and anxiety?iii
Our people and, subsequently, our organizations’ bottom lines are negatively impacted and have few resources to prevent or fix these issues. Organizational leaders have the responsibility to remove mental health stigmas and proactively find ways to help their institutions and employees. Here are three inexpensive ways to start supporting your employees’ mental health today.
Add a Meditation Room
Consider adding a meditation room in your office space and encouraging employees to use it at least once or twice a day for at least 12 minutes. iv To maximize results, include an essential oils diffuser or candle, a white-noise machine, and multiple sets of headphones for a guided meditation option.
Since people spend 33% of their week at work, v the workplace should provide an area for employees to deal with negative emotions. If institutions already provide for physical needs with bathrooms, chairs, and break room areas, then why not include an area for mental needs? Including a “mental” break room would be logical given that employees working in offices perform more mental labor than physical labor. In fact, “one-third [of employees claim] breakout spaces would help improve their mental health” with 49% voting to add a meditation room.vi
Despite Nike, Apple, and Google being among those companies with a meditation room amenity, this option can be very inexpensive for your organization if you redesign a space in the office.vii Maybe the office has an extra storage room that can be cleaned out and repurposed. Alternatively, consider using office partition panels to designate an area for mindfulness. Either way, the key for this strategy to combat presenteeismviii is in managers actively practicing and stressing the importance of daily meditation.
Reduce Mental Health Stigmas
As leaders in their organizations, managers have the power to decrease mental health stigmas through being vulnerable with employees about their own struggles. Mental health issues thrive in silence and are, in part, defeated through understanding and communication. When employers openly share about their mental health struggles, they create a precedent for their employees to do the same.ix
One study ran a survey on impact from COVID-19, and found that 10% of businesses have at least 75% of its employees working from home with around 92% of employees having children at home under the age of 18.x Stressful work conditions and increased isolation has led to 45% of businesses reporting “unhappy and stressed employees” and “a reduction in staff productivity.”.xi
Figure 1
When most public schools switched online, parents with children had the added responsibility of taking care of distracting kids while performing their work duties.Source: Kathie Stamps, “A Mindful Approach.”xii
This caused further mental strain through an already challenging adjustment period. Although mental strain can negatively impact productivity, mental health issues are highly treatable if help is sought early. Therefore, destigmatizing the need to seek help by talking about these issues can lead to a direct increase in worker productivity.
For example, you can be the first to mention how the pandemic has affected you or a loved one’s mental health. Alternatively, you can use your company’s mental health benefits—if you haven’t already done so—to gauge its effectiveness and encourage employees to quickly seek help when needed. After using the services, mention it to your employees and colleagues to help reduce usage shame.
Furthermore, the language we use when talking about mental health problems has the power to either perpetuate stigmas or crush them. When speaking about mental health, try using the following phrases:
Figure 2: Watch Your Language
Source: Phillip Ginter, “Conducting a Mental Health Culture Audit.”xiii
When leaders openly and correctly communicate, they can destigmatize and encourage employees to seek help for a mental health concern in the same way they would for a migraine. In the long run, sharing struggles will benefit the company culture and employee productivity.
Sponsor Workplace Activities
Lastly, organizational leaders can sponsor biannual workplace activities that train and educate employees in the following four areas:
- How to help themselves and others living with mental health issues.
- Possible mental health prevention strategies.
- Explain mental health benefits and other work-sponsored programs like an Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
- Using surveys to measure mental health trends in the office and record feedback on what work aspects negatively impact employees.
Sponsoring workplace activities for employee mental health at least twice a year sends employees a strong message about the importance of destigmatizing mental health issues and helps create a dialogue for employees to build on. Furthermore, these activities can increase the usage of mental health programs and provide valuable information to managers about existing issues in the workplace that may be impacting worker productivity.
Mind Share Partners1 is an example of a national nonprofit organization that helps businesses change the culture of workplace mental health through providing training and advising with limited budget options for their services.
Conclusion
Now, more than ever, mental health should be a primary concern for every institution as we still face uncertainty from this pandemic. Corporations have a unique social responsibility to take a holistic approach in protecting their companies’ greatest assets—their employees.
I call on all institutional leaders to apply at least one, if not all three, of these simple and inexpensive approaches to supporting worker mental health.
Applying these strategies will not only benefit your business’s bottom line, but also show genuine care for your institution’s hard-working employees.
i “World Mental Health Day: an Opportunity to Kick-Start a Massive Scale-up in Investment in Mental Health,” World Health Organization, August 27, 2020, https://www.who.int/news/item/27-08-2020-world- mental-health-day-an-opportunity-to-kick-start-a- massive-scale-up-in-investment-in-mental-health
ii Etelka Lehoczky, “Keeping Your Workers Well,” INC., March 1, 2018, 42-44, http://web.b.ebscohost.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/ehost/pdfpdfvie/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=f413b5c4-31f3-4995- af97-a907e3a50f4b%40pdc-v-sessmgr02
iii Amanda Schiavo, “It’s a fool’s Choice when Employers Ignore Investing in Mental Health Benefits,” Employee Benefit Advisor (Online). July 23, 2020, https://www-proquest- com.erl.lib.byu.edu/docview/2448680454?accountid=4488
iv Kim E Innes et al, “Effects of Meditation and Music- Listening on Blood Biomarkers of Cellular Aging and Alzheimer’s disease in Adults with Subjective Cognitive Decline: An Exploratory Randomized Clinical Trial,” Journal of Alzheimer’s disease: JAD 66, no. 3 (2018): 947-970, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27079708/
v Jennifer A. Veitch, “Workplace Design Contributions to Mental Health and Well-Being,” HealthcarePapers 11, no. SP (2011): 38-46, https://www.longwoods.com/content/22409/healthca repapers/workplace-design-contributions-to-mental- health-and-well-being
vi EG., “Property Has a Role to Play in Promoting Mental Health,” EG: Estates Gazette, April 27, 2019, N. pag, http://erl.lib.byu.edu/login/?url=http://search.ebscoh ost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=1361 36507&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
vii Shelby, Deering, “10 Meditation Spaces That Will Inspire You to Create Your Own,” The Spruce, September 21, 2020, https://www.thespruce.com/meditation- spaces-that-inspire-4177495.
viii “Presenteeism is the condition of physical presence but mental or functional absence at the workplace. It occurs when a clocked-in employee can’t complete their full load of tasks due to illness, depression, stress, or exhaustion.” Jamie LeSueur, “Buzzwords,” Marriot Student Review, February 2020, 38.
ix Kelly Greenwood and Natasha Krol, “8 Ways Managers Can Support Employees’ Mental Health,” Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, August 7, 2020, 2-6, http://erl.lib.byu.edu/login/?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/lo gin.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=145119080&site=ehost- live&scope=site.
x Kathie Stamps, “A Mindful Approach: Destigmatizing Mental Health in the Workplace Can Help Employees Be More Productive,” The Lane Report, September 2020, 44-46, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/ehost/det ail/detail?vid=0&sid=585c815c-a9db-411b-999a- f4ee84884b8a%40sessionmgr4007&bdata=JnNpdG U9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=145763276&db=buh
xi Kathie Stamps, “A Mindful Approach.”
xii Kathie Stamps, “A Mindful Approach.”
xiii Phillip A. Ginter, “Conducting a Mental Health Culture Audit,” Benefits Magazine, May 2018, 40-45, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/ehost/pdf viewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=9b04c56c-edba-4971- aa30-7399c2763547%40sessionmgr4007
