Mental health – is equally important as physical health. In today’s world, mental health is said to be a prime area of concern. As per research, the estimated cost to the global economy due to lack of productivity by depression and other anxiety disorder is around $1 trillion per year. A lot of organizations focus on physical health and the ways to improve productivity along with that. But a very few employers are Improve productivity through health wellness.
These organizations organize sessions for employee welfare, subsidize the therapy bills of their employees, or give allowance for life coaches training or even offer sabbatical breaks to their long-time employees. Research has also shown that the organizations which used to only consider physical illness like heart disease and diabetes have now also started to look at other factors like depression and anxiety.
In this Transformation Tuesday, let us look at ways in which we can improve the mental wellness of the employees:
Allow Flexibility:
In case of use of mental wellness allowance, give the employees the flexibility to use it as they want to. It must be such that it will help them to improve mental wellness. They can use it in a number of ways like massage, therapist appointment, meditation classes, and others.
There is an organization in New York City, which gives its employees an allowance of $50 per month. In which the employees use the allowance for therapy appointments, while others spend it on massages, meditation, gym memberships, etc.
Employees Buy-In:
While several top organizations offer mental health allowances, not much of the employees who are also addicted to something or the other would take advantage of this benefit. The reason behind this is, many a time, the workforce is not even aware if something like this even exists. So, it is necessary to spread awareness about this amongst the workforce. Also, employee buy-in may not work as efficiently and effectively as it should be in larger organizations. What might work over there is the openness of the management team about their past experiences with the mental health and how they overcame that. This can help the employees understand that mental illness is not shameful and can be treated in its early stage.
Easy Accessibility:
Opening the workplace dialogue and explaining coping strategies can go a long way in helping the employees with their mental health. But many a time, few people might require professional help. Although your health insurance covers mental health, it is very difficult to find a therapist who will accept insFaberurance and take the patient. Under such circumstances, you can look for collaborating with the therapist who might accept both. This will help the organization and employees.
Bringing In Professionals:
Another way can be by bringing in professional help for conducting in house group sessions. Hiring a therapist who will be conducting sessions once a year where he/she takes the sessions for all levels of management including bottom level, middle level, and top level. This will help the employee bring in better points of view for their tasks and will help them see things in different ways. This will also help the organization know, understand and solve issues that the organization was unaware of.
Track The Progress:
It is important for the organization to have a track of the performance after having such sessions. Only this can show the impact of how beneficial this is and how can it help improve the productivity of the organization. If the organization fails to keep track, then it will never know the progress and thus all the investment will not be worth.
Hence, the above-listed pointers will help you improve your workplace productivity with the help of employee mental health wellness.
Compiled by Faber Priyal & Faber Mayuri
