3 strategies to keep your workplace mentally healthy during COVID-19
The Mental Health Commission, in conjunction with the Mentally Healthy Workplace Alliance, has put together some information to help support the mental health and wellbeing of workers and to encourage mentally healthy workplaces during COVID-19.
Building a mentally healthy workplace is not only good for your people, it is also good for your organisation. Offering mental health counselling and courses, helps you attract (and keep) great talent. When people are functioning at their best, they can think more clearly, flexibly and creatively. This means your organisation as a whole can be more responsive and agile.
3 Strategies to keep your workplace mentally healthy
Coordinate your approach across the organisation
Building a mentally healthy workplace is about creating an environment and culture that recognises mental health and wellbeing as an important asset. A strategic approach goes beyond raising awareness and supporting people affected by mental ill-health and suicide. It also includes proactively reducing work-related harm and identifying ways to promote the positive aspects of work. Coordinating action across health and safety, human resources, operations and communications teams under strong leadership support and guidance will make your approach more efficient and effective than relying on disconnected and reactive solutions. This can begin by securing commitment from the leadership team, creating a working group to lead change and identifying and agreeing on priority areas for action.
Consult workers and be transparent about change
The current climate of change and uncertainty is difficult for many people, particularly when changes impact careers and livelihoods. Poorly planned or communicated change can create additional stress, lead people to imagine worst case scenarios and rumours to spread. Some decisions or changes are never easy, but they can be managed with dignity, fairness and respect. It is important to understand that it is normal for people to feel a range of emotional reactions in response to change, particularly if they are being redeployed, stood down or made redundant.
It is important to listen and acknowledge that this is not business as usual and it is okay to not feel okay. Keep communication clear, consistent, considerate and timely to create an environment of trust and respect that is foundational to a mentally healthy workplace. By creating an environment in which open communication is expected, workers will feel more comfortable raising issues and contributing to solutions. You do not need to have all the answers, often people will be happy knowing what progress is being made and how the organisation is approaching unknowns. Your internal communications plan should include a healthy flow of information about changes to daily operations or conditions, management expectations and which protection measures are in place. It should also consider which areas of the organisation or locations require different messages or ways messages need to be tailored to different audiences such as people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
Design for the future
Many organisations have found innovative ways to work throughout the pandemic, and things we thought would take years to change have changed within weeks. As your organisation looks to the future, it can also be an opportunity to celebrate new ways of working and re-imagine how and where work is done. Putting these principles into action now could set your organisation up for being mentally healthier in the longer term.