How to Take Care of Mental Health at Workplace?

Authored by Ariba Khan, Founder, Jumping Minds

For many of us, work is a major part of our lives. It is where we spend a good chunk of our time, where we get our income, and often where we make our friends too. Having a fulfilling job can be good for your mental health and general well-being.

Mental Health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and react. It helps to determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. Workplaces that give attention to mental health and wellness are more likely to reduce stress, anxiety, and absenteeism, increase productivity and motivate people to work in a healthy environment.

Mental health awareness in the workplace is nothing new. That’s probably because its impact can be detrimental to a business's success. While our understanding of mental health at work is changing, and how widespread poor mental health is, it’s worth looking at the basics. Raising awareness and fostering dialogue about mental health is critical. But talking isn’t always enough on its own.There are many effective ways that organizations can take to promote mental health in the workplace; such actions may also benefit productivity and will maintain a good head space for the working individuals.

There are many risk factors for mental health that may be present in the working environment, they are: interactions between the type of work, the organizational and managerial environment, the skills and competencies of employees, and the support available for employees to carry out their work within an organization. For example, a person may have the skills to complete tasks, but they may have too few resources to do what is required, -. Another example can be of a person trying to grasp and learn things at Workplace, since it’s a very competitive world. Giving a head start, cutting some slack and supporting them goes a long way for both the employee and the employer.

Creating a better and healthy work environment

 A healthy workplace can be described as one where the managers and employees actively contribute to the working environment by promoting and protecting the health, safety, and well-being of all the employees and making it a better place for the people to work.

Listed below are the few steps organizations can take to create a healthy workplace:

• Protect mental health by reducing work-related risk factors
• Promote mental health by developing the positive aspects of work and the strengths of employees of the organization
• Address mental health problems regardless of its causes
• Keeping patience and giving time to the employees
• Awareness of the workplace environment and how it can be adapted to promote better mental health for different employees
• Promoting work-life balance
• Communicating with the higher authorities if things aren’t working well
• Organizing some fun activities for the employees, for example: indoor games, music, creating art etc
• Rewarding the employees and giving them always a chance to improve and do better
• Learning from the motivations of organizational leaders and employees who have acted
• Understanding the needs and demands of the employees
• Giving them new opportunities and a fair chance to speak for themselves when required
• Upskilling them and guiding them to learn and acquire new skills which will be beneficial for them as well as the organization.
• Motivating team members and boosting their confidence

With new age apps, like jumpingMinds, it has become even easier to provide Mental Health help for employees. It takes less than 5 mins to integrate the app with your org needs and you have help available at the tip of your fingers. There is visibility with a comprehensive reporting structure that can help the leadership teams intervene to take appropriate actions and provide support, The thought process and the perseverance of Mental Health has completely changed. Although employers have started to invest more, employees have rightfully increased their expectations from the organizations.

The future of workplace mental health demands culture change – with more vulnerability, compassion, and sustainable ways of working in the environment. People want to be respected at their workplace and want to be accepted the way they are without any discrimination. It’s good to see that the change is coming to create a better healthy and motivated workplace and build a better future for the employees as well as the organization.