MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH 2022: 5 WAYS MANAGERS CAN SUPPORT WORKERS

In America today, about one-fifth of all adults report experiencing high levels of psychological distress after more than a year of disruption caused by the pandemic.

Now, our nation is experiencing a significant rise in people experiencing depression, anxiety, and other serious mental health distress, according to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

So as offices reopen and workers nationwide get ready to return to in-person working environments, it’s more important than ever to reflect on how managers and workforce leaders can support their employees’ mental health needs. 

For Mental Health Awareness Month 2022, we are outlining five key ways that managers can help workers who are dealing with psychological distress and other mental health challenges:

1. CREATE A HEALTHY WORK-LIFE BALANCE

For workers who were able to telework during the pandemic, the work from home lifestyle often led to increased stress and significantly longer workdays. 

In fact, a recent study from The National Bureau of Economic Research found that the average workday has been extended by 48.5 minutes since pre-COVID times for workers across the globe. During the pandemic, the average remote employee has been working for an average of  10.75 hours per day.

The stress of a global pandemic paired with longer hours and a heavier workload has left millions of workers feeling more burned out than ever before.

To help support workers, managers need to step in and create healthy work-life boundaries for their team. And they need to stick by the boundaries they create. There are several steps managers can take toward creating a better work-life balance such as:

• Encouraging workers to block off small amounts of calendar time for mental and physical wellness breaks throughout the day 
• Making at least one-fifth of all meetings audio-only to help cut down on Zoom fatigue
• Only responding to Slack messages or DMs two to three times per day in time blocks of no more than 30 minutes
• Setting definite log-off times and sticking to them

2. ENCOURAGING OUTDOOR BREAKS

All too often, employees spend their lunch ‘break’ hard at work at their desk, never really taking time to log off and step away from the screen.

Luckily, most workers likely have the ability to step outside and take a walk each day. Even if it’s just taking 10 minutes to walk up and down the block, encouraging workers to leave the screen behind and spend some time outdoors can have immediate and lasting effects on workers’ mental health. 

This practice helps boost mental and physical health, plus you can make it fun! Challenge your team to see who takes the most steps during the workday, and award prizes to the winner at the end of every week or month. This can help foster a healthy sense of competition while ensuring your workers see the sun, get some much needed Vitamin D, and take an actual break during the workday.

3. INVEST IN MENTAL HEALTH TRAINING

Change starts from the top. 

This is why it’s so important to invest in mental health and wellness training for all workers, managers, and leaders. Because if workforce leaders and managers aren’t prioritizing mental health, their company culture won’t value it either and their workers will suffer.

If an organization’s senior leadership isn’t regularly talking about how they can create a mentally healthy culture and support their workers’ unique needs and circumstances, we aren’t going to create the kind of change we need to improve and support workers after the pandemic.

Content that should be included in this type of training are:

• Reducing stigma around mental health
• Navigating post-COVID uncertainty
• Debunking common myths about mental health
• Building mentally healthy company cultures 
• Supporting the needs of marginalized workers 

4. COMMUNICATE WITH TEAM MEMBERS 1:1 AT LEAST ONCE PER WEEK

“How do I know if one of my employees is struggling?” 

It’s a question many workforce leaders have struggled with, but the answer is often more simple than you might think; it all comes down to one key thing: communication.

In a time when people are facing high levels of uncertainty, it’s more important than ever to communicate with your team on a regular, ongoing basis. In fact, a recent study found that employees who felt their managers were not good at communicating have been 23% more likely to experience mental health declines since the start of the pandemic. 

Sharing updates or modified work schedules and policies is especially important so that every worker within your organization feels as up-to-date and informed as possible amid the uncertainty of returning to work post-pandemic.

Workforce leaders should also communicate with their people about mental health resources. The aforementioned study found that 46% of all workers had not received any such resources from their manager, which can contribute to feelings of isolation, stigma, and shame that people suffering from mental distress often experience.

5. OUR 5TH TIP IS…

Since one of the most important things managers can do to support their workers’ mental health is to communicate honestly and openly about mental health in the workplace, you’re going to have to earn the fifth mental health tip for workforce leaders by answering this question from 1Huddle’s Mental Health game.

Here’s your question: 

Anxiety and depression symptoms have more than _________ over the past year, with Black Americans shouldering the heaviest burden:

1. Doubled
2. Tripled
3. Quadrupled 
4. Diminished

Do you know the answer? Email your responses to dana@1huddle.co, and if you get it right we will send you our fifth tip plus exclusive VIP access to 1Huddle’s Mental Health game.

1Huddle can help you and your team stay ahead of the learning curve. We offer cloud-based employee gamification software. You can customize your content for a seamless experience and all of your employees will be able to access their training anywhere, anytime and at the push of a button. You can use our game platform to measure their performance and make key decisions on where you should take your gamification strategy next. 

Do you want to learn more about how 1Huddle can help you level up your own workforce? Talk to us today.