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With all of this talk about supporting the mental wellness of employees, you might be wondering, “What does supporting an employee’s mental wellness actually look like?” 

If you currently invest or have invested time in your mental wellness through activities such as going to therapy or counseling, journaling, checking in with your feelings, etc., what you are about to learn will be easy to understand. 

If you’ve had very few conversations about your emotional state (if any) or have never spent time on mental wellness activities, the material that you are about to learn may be difficult to understand.

What does supporting mental wellness look like at work?

We will cover what support is and isn’t, which can be confusing due to the uncertainty surrounding how to talk about mental wellness in the workplace. Understanding what is and isn’t support for the mental wellness of employees is the only way to be clear on your boundaries and expectations of you and your employees.

Let’s begin with what your role as a supporter of the mental wellness of employees does NOT include. 

As someone in a leadership, managerial, or supervisory position, your role is NOT to:

• Act as their counselor or therapist
• Pry into the personal life of an employee
• Be overly invested in their success

Avoiding being overly invested in the success of an employee appears to be counterintuitive. While you are supporting your employee and you do want the best for them in and out of the workplace, being overly invested in their success may add pressure to the employee, causing them to feel overwhelmed. 

This added pressure can make their current mental wellness challenge worse. It’s okay to root for them to succeed and check in occasionally, but give them space and privacy after having conversations about their mental health rather than feeling as if you need to drive their mental wellness efforts.

How can leaders support employee mental wellness

There are things that you can and should do as a leader when discussing the mental health of your employees with them. What you should do includes: 

• Educating yourself on wellness resources available to employees through your company’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) or spending time researching free online resources if your company doesn’t have an EAP
• Stay knowledgeable about current trends, resources, and best practices through the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) and the Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI)
• Listen to an employee and be fully present, listening with an open mind and heart
• Direct employees to resources that can support them further
• Identify strategies and systems to ensure their work tasks can be completed in a manageable and dependable way
  
• Develop a plan for ongoing support of employees who are struggling and for checking in with all the employees on your team
• Promote and cultivate a mentally healthy work environment
• Quickly identify when employees might be struggling with a mental health challenge
• Approach this sensitive subject proactively, effectively, and ethically
• Understand the true importance of employee wellness for your organization

Begin with educating yourself on available wellness resources through your company’s EAP or searching online if your company doesn’t currently offer an EAP. Through investing the time learning about this, you will be able to instinctively choose the best ones to share with them.

Many companies offer helplines cost-free to employees where they can speak to a trained professional when having a mental wellness challenge. Understanding the resources available will help you discover ways to help your employees, and you might even find resources that YOU can benefit from utilizing.

Why It’s Important to Talk About Mental Health at Work

Your mental health doesn’t take time off when you’re at work. Your work will likely have a positive or negative impact on your mental wellness. According to Mental Health America’s Mind the Workplace 2021 Report, 9 out of 10 employees surveyed in 2020 reported that workplace stress had a negative impact on their mental health. This impact was in addition to the general stress experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Engaging in mental health conversations at work can directly lead to a decrease in the negative impact work has on a person’s mental health. Having the option to talk to a supervisor about workplace stress was most strongly correlated with the highest overall scores for workplace health. 

In other words, leaders who show they truly care about their employees make the most difference in creating mentally healthy and happy workplaces. This proves that talking about mental health in the workplace has a positive impact on the mental health of employees. 

Madalyn Parker, an employee at the company Olark Chat Live, struggled with anxiety and depression. She messaged her team and let them know that she was going to take two days off to focus on her mental health. 

She wrote “Hey Team, I'm taking today and tomorrow off to focus on my mental health. Hopefully, I'll be back next week, refreshed and back to 100%.” 

The CEO, Ben Congleton, replied to her. He said, “Hey, Madalyn, I just wanted to personally thank you for sending emails like this. Every time you do, I use it as a reminder of the importance of using sick days for mental health. I can't believe this is not standard practice at all organizations. You're an example to us all and help cut through the stigma so we can all bring our whole selves to work.” 

That was the CEO. Madalyn posted this exchange on Twitter and it went viral. The story was picked up by many major news outlets and ended up having a far-reaching effect on the business world. Not only was that an example of getting out of this work, work, work culture, but it also sent a message to the whole company and others like it, that taking care of your mental health is important. 

If you’re interested in learning additional strategies you can use to talk to employees about stress and mental health challenges enroll in the online course Connectivity & Conversations: Talking About Employee Mental Health.