As individuals spend more and more of their time and energy at work, it becomes crucial for businesses to ensure their employees’ mental health and wellbeing is looked after. Over the last few years, burnout has become a widespread problem for business leaders and their teams; businesses need to acknowledge it and address it.
What is burn out exactly? Burnout refers to the exhaustion, cynicism, anxiety, and overall dissatisfaction experienced by employees as a result of high-pressure work environments. The negative impact this can have on an organization can be alarming. Costing time, money, and also potentially losing valuable employees. However, businesses can mitigate burnout by investing in employee mental health initiatives. In this blog, we will explore why such investment is necessary.
Research has shown that investing in employee wellbeing can improve business outcomes. Regular mental health intervention measures such as workshops and therapy provide employees with coping mechanisms to manage stress and work-life balance. In turn, this will increase mental resilience, job satisfaction, productivity, efficiency, and employee retention. As a result, this can lead to healthier workplaces with more collaborative, communicative, and supportive work cultures. These initiatives can help businesses foster more engaged, productive, and loyal employees who are more likely to stick around for the long term.
Providing a safe and supportive work environment is crucial to maintain employee mental health. For example, creating an environment in which an employee can talk to their manager or colleagues about issues regarding their mental health without fear of stigma or discrimination. By providing this, businesses can help keep employees from feeling overloaded or overwhelmed by their responsibilities. Implementing flexible working arrangements, for instance, could allow employees to better manage their time and their mental health. It can give employees the option to have a work-life balance that they require, which is so important to overall wellbeing.
Another way to invest in a company’s mental health is to provide an Employee Assistance Program (EAP). This program can offer custom counseling and support to employees to overcome personal difficulties, whether caused by work-related stress, life events, or mental health concerns. Indeed, EAP can provide vital help and support for employees without undermining their privacy, as the conversations held with an EAP counselor are considered confidential.
What an employer can do to help their team doesn’t stop there. Keep in mind that many contributing factors to workplace stress and dissatisfaction are dysfunctional business operations. The more difficult a job is to do the more stressful it will become. By providing your team with the tools and resources they need to effectively do their jobs, you are mitigating a stressful work environment.
In conclusion, it is clear that investing in employee mental health is not just an ethical thing to do; it is also a smart business move. It helps to avoid a plethora of problems that can occur due to employee burnout, including decreased job satisfaction, lost productivity hours, turnover, and damage to the company’s reputation. By offering mental health initiatives, and appropriate tools and resources companies can create a supportive work culture, lower absenteeism, and promote a healthy and engaged workforce.
So, businesses are encouraged to invest in both their business as well as mental health initiatives to create a win-win situation for everybody involved. We take great pride in helping our clients get to the root cause of business issues focusing on people, processes, technology and customer experience. If you would like to discuss your business operations and improve your overall human capital, book a consultation with one of our experts.
