World Mental Health Day is Sunday, October 10, and people from around the globe will be participating in activities that raise awareness of mental health issues and help mobilize efforts in support of mental health. Mobilization is paramount: people need support for their mental health — and that support can and should come from a variety of sources, including the workplace.
The World Has Its Eyes on Mental Health
First, mental health is a global concern. WHO reported that “during the World Health Assembly in May 2021, governments from around the world recognized the need to scale up quality mental health services at all levels and endorsed WHO’s Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2030, including the Plan’s updated implementation options and indicators for measuring progress.” This is great news writ large and demonstrates how mental health is being given its due recognition, especially after a year of the pandemic and related global crises.
Employers Are Minding Employees' Mental Health
Second, mental health is an organizational concern. These stats from Mental Health America’s 2021 Report on the State of Mental Health in America put some context around the important endeavor of supporting our workforces’ mental health:
- The number of people looking for help with anxiety and depression has skyrocketed.
- More people are reporting frequent thoughts of suicide and self-harm than have ever been recorded in the MHA Screening program since its launch in 2014.
- Young people are struggling most with their mental health.
It’s clear that there’s no time to waste, and employers are working to better understand and support employees’ mental health needs. Grokker’s 2021 State of Emotional Wellbeing research revealed some interesting insights that are of particular relevance to managers:
People are struggling more than ever.
Roughly 80% of workers report the onset or worsening of mental health symptoms since the start of the pandemic — and 23% have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder during this time. This means that most employees are facing mental health concerns on some level and therefore need heightened levels of support.
Managers are not perceived as providing their teams with ample mental health support.
Over half (57%) of workers haven’t been asked by their manager about their mental health, been asked to fill out a survey to provide feedback about mental health resources, or received communications about post-pandemic workplace mental health resources. This suggests that there’s room for improvement in the areas of psychological safety as well as interpersonal and team communications, especially regarding benefits and support tools.
Managers might need to build their empathy skills.
Executives are the most likely to report having no barriers to taking care of their emotional wellbeing; likewise for reporting impact on their work. This isn’t to say that managers aren’t struggling with their mental health. The takeaway is that leaders can’t assume that everyone is on an even playing field when it comes to mental health and emotional self-care.
Moving forward, the key is taking action on these insights and helping employees manage their mental health and emotional wellbeing.
What Can Managers Do To Support Employees’ Mental Health?
This is the critical question, and it's an ideal one to ask on and around Wold Mental Health Day. Managers are on the front lines with workers, perfectly positioned to identify and support those who are struggling. Managers can help de-stigmatize mental health concerns and create a safe place for sharing. They can lead by example, modeling and even coaching on healthy behaviors. They can also share company resources that make a difference in employees’ daily lives, in and out of the office.
In other words, leaders need to put their people and their mental health first, especially during these challenging times. Employees are stressed, feeling uncertain about the future, and possibly wondering if other employers offer greener pastures. As we've seen, many are struggling depression, anxiety, and other issues that impact their ability to engage fully at work. Managers need a way to give them the support they need.
Give Them Grokker’s Employee C.A.R.E. Package
Grokker’s new Employee C.A.R.E. Package was built for this moment — to provide the personalized content and guided experience to help employees care for themselves and connect with each other through wellbeing.
And by delivering customized insights alongside these tools, it’s exactly what managers need to strengthen morale, satisfaction, and retention through this difficult transitional period and emerge with a blueprint for ongoing success.
The Employee C.A.R.E. Package arms managers with:
- Communications Toolkit - A digital library of multimedia assets making it easy to promote the program with the team.
- Insights into the team’s state of mind - Anonymized insight into the team’s adoption and engagement metrics, with ongoing customized updates, coaching, and progress monitoring to help understand and support employees’ results.
- A happier, healthier, and more connected team - People will feel heard and cared for, empowered with personalized plans of action and the engaging resources they need to feel their best, body and mind.
And it give their teams access to:
- 30 days of Grokker - Unlimited access to Grokker’s award-winning wellbeing solution, engagement tools, and inclusive community. They'll love Grokker's brand-new collection of Mood-Boosting Mini Meditations that explore gratitude, focus, resilience, stress, confidence, happiness, and goal-setting. In addition, they can tap into Grokker's wide range of mental health and emotional wellbeing programs, including Beyond Burnout, Breaking Free From Stress: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, 10 Days to Happiness, Yoga for Anxiety, Mindset for Greatness, and many more!
- A personalized action plan - Based on the results of their Worker Wellbeing Index survey, Grokker will arm them recommendations for rich, engaging content within Grokker’s platform to help them thrive and feel better about their work and their life right now.
- Built-in inspiration - A daily delivery of motivation and fresh content and weekly journey challenges to engage them in friendly competition.
Recognize World Health Day with this free 30-day program from Grokker! This turnkey program is easy to get up and running and will help managers and employees feel their best. Get started today!
