Despite the supposed return to normal working mode employees are still dealing with stress. In fact, medical reports suggest that mental health issues are increasing for employees.
As per the Mental Health America’s Mind in the Workplace report, 83% of the employees are facing early signs of burnout. The report also stated that 25% of the workers are experiencing severe symptoms of burnout, which include envy towards work colleagues, poorer performance, and apathy for the workplace. 71% of the employees have even claimed that the workplace is increasing their mental health issues.
While we thought that employees struggling to find the best TV internet bundles and the right life balance would be delighted with the return to the workplace, the report seems to declare otherwise.
Nevertheless, there is still hope. Employers can make a lot of effort if they want to help employees battling mental health issues. All it takes is to keep mental health as a priority and then use the following tips to work through it.
Normalize Mental Health
It is time to take lessons from Target. Target recently helped its employees recognize and managing excessive stress. This activity was extremely important since the target front-line employees worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic. Target activities to help employees deal with stress included:
Social programming, expert guest speaking forums training through mentors to give employees inspiration and tangible advice.
Target offered its employees free counseling sessions per year and this was also available for employees’ household members.
Target provided counseling resources on many topics that lead to stress. Issues such as managing finances, finding childcare, work and life balance, and more. Target also helped its employees in managing stress by giving them access to online apps and resources such as Daylight; which helps people with stress-reducing strategies. Other apps like Sleepo, which helps people in improving their sleep and Grokker a fitness app for nutrition, medication, and exercise, were also part of the wellness campaign by Target.
Turn on Music
Believe it or not, it turns out that tuning up tunes actually helps.
Employees in a recent Sound University survey claimed that listening to music has helped them overcome stress. 85% of the participants also said that music helps them stay sane! And nearly 90% of the participants said that music has improved their energy level and helped them boost their productivity. Even if it was not for the survey claiming, we could still totally agree with the findings. Music has helped us personally to deal with stress at the workplace and even while working from home.
This makes it clear that for America music is not just a habit instead it is a savior, a lifeline. And this is not what we say but the CEO of Sound United thinks alike.
Get Employees Moving
One of the easiest way and most accessible ways to reduces stress and burnout is by moving your employees move. And now we do not suggest giving them the task of running errands from floor to floor. Instead, find ways to keep them away from work while they are dealing with stress. Especially when they are feeling extremely overhyped.
Researchers have shown that being outside or a quick walk can reduce the feeling of stress. The researchers have also shown that taking a break from routine and stepping outside of the office can boost productivity and creativity in employees. Being outdoors can be anything. Taking a stroll to hike or a run or a walk. Basically, anything that can improve employees to move and take them away from stress will work.
Therefore, as an employer, you need to encourage your employees into stepping out more for the corporate entity and find their motivation in the outside work. Managers can also hold a walking meeting for two or more people and make it a practice to encourage stress-free walk away.
The Quite Zones
For some people, staying quiet in a quiet place is the best cure for stress and around. But finding such corners in an office is hard.
So as an employer you might help create quiet zones for your employees who need to step out of all the noise that increases their stress.
This also includes establishing no meeting days for the employees to relax a bit and just focus on their work.
Practice What You Preach
As an employer, you need to show your vulnerabilities to your employees to let them understand that everyone is going through stress and anxiety. To help them in a way to balance you need to practice what you preach.