You have searched for this topic meaning either you are a stressed employee and looking for techniques of how to get rid of a toxic work culture or you are in the management team searching for suitable options for maintaining mental health at the workplace.
In this blog, we will explore how to maintain mental health and take care of employee wellbeing at the workplace. Additionally, we have discussed some tips for employees on how to stay out of the toxic work environment.
What is Mental Health in the Workplace?
A combination of happy employees and good productivity leads to a healthy workplace. A mentally healthy workplace ensures the emotional, psychological, and social aspects of a person’s life relating to their work. Maintaining good mental health is crucial for overall well-being and productivity in the workplace.
A Link Between Work – Mental Health in the Workplace
In corporate work culture, employee increment or their personal development or work satisfaction depends upon their smart work, proficiency, and employee-employer relationship. Often this culture misleads to employee rivalry thus creating corporate competition.
Corporate competition brings negative impacts on employee health. The intense pressure of meeting targets results in stress, anxiety, and burnout among employees. Additionally, excessive workload, long working hours, job insecurity, and a hypercompetitive culture can affect mental and physical health.
As a result, employees lose their work-life balance and quit work. on the other hand, organizations face challenges in maintaining employee retention, employee engagement, etc. affecting productivity.
What do Companies Worry About the Mentally Unhealthy Workplace
Often organizations face challenges like employees’ resistance against office politics thus results in random employee turnover, less productivity, etc. The main cause behind this loss can be a mentally unhealthy workplace. Let’s take a look at what kind of issues the organization may face from an unhealthy workplace.
- Employee disengagement
- Poor communication
- Random turnover
- continue loss increase
- Bad Review on social media
- Low profit
Benefits of Maintaining Good Mental Health at the Workplace
Having a good mentally healthy workplace means the organization already won employee satisfaction and engagement. A company with a healthy workplace leads to good employee retention and productivity for years. In this section, we will share the advantages of maintaining a healthy atmosphere at the workplace.
Increased Productivity
Increasing productivity and business growth is one of the main goals of every organization. Company success solely depends on employee recruitment, balanced employer-employee relationships, employee well-being, strategic work schedules, etc.
Happy and energetic employees create a friendly work atmosphere where they help one another, concentrate on their tasks and are more likely to meet deadlines effectively. Good mental health conditions can improve the employee-employer relationship, it ensures good productivity and business profit as well.
Enhanced Creativity and Innovation
A positive mental state fosters creativity and innovation. A happy and enthusiastic employee innovates many more things than that of a frustrated experienced employee. Employees who feel mentally well are more likely to think creatively, problem-solve effectively, and contribute innovative ideas to the organization. They do even work harder until the business productivity.
On the other hand, in a mentally ill workplace, despite exploring creativity, employees just work for the scheduled hours to get paid and achieve their target. They don’t bother if the company is improving or not.
Better Employee Morale
Employees are always engaged in a friendly work atmosphere. A balanced work culture with a good employee-employer relationship promotes a positive atmosphere and boosts employee overall morale.
In a good work atmosphere when the employees feel supported and valued, they are more likely to be motivated, satisfied and committed to their work, ultimately the productivity will be improved. You can say that good mental health improves the employee’s encouragement towards work and enhances business productivity.
Improvised Legal and Ethical Compliance
Now the case of employee harassment has increased tremendously. The government has imposed strict laws and compliances against employee harassment, and employee stress. Promoting good mental health aligns with legal and ethical responsibilities for employers. Creating a psychologically safe workplace helps prevent workplace discrimination, harassment, and other issues that may lead to legal challenges.
How to Maintain Mental Health at Work
In a corporate work culture, often employees feel stressed and anxious about achieving the target within the estimated timeline. Even they are compelled to work using personal leave and sick days or taking some vacation time. Even some kind of internal politics at the workplace destroys the employee’s willingness to work as well. They feel burnout; instead of giving their best, they complete their duty hours and leave the place.
Maintaining good mental health is not only a good thing to implement, with it is essential to improving employee well-being at the workplace. Even if any employees in the organization are not facing any issues right now, it is important to take care of their emotional health. It can help to build resilience and provide a scope to build up employee engagement in a better way.
1. Encourge Open Communication
In an organization open communication between team members is essential. It fosters empathy and connection. They feel connected and stress-free, thus leading to a well-maintained healthy work atmosphere. Moreover, transparency allows managers and other colleagues to identify work stress, provide support, and collaborate with the solution.
Streamless communication often talks about mental health and creates a foundation for proactive interventions, destigmatizing mental health issues and contributing to a workplace culture that prioritizes the holistic well-being of its employees. Overall, it helps the employees feel valued, supported, and understood and results in good productivity.
2. Maintain Work-life Balance
Maintaining work-life balance is one of the key points of maintaining mental health issues at the workplace. Keeping a balance between professional responsibilities and personal life helps prevent burnout, reduce stress, and enhance overall well-being.
Let’s take an example, an organization that has fixed working hours like login time 9.00 am to log out time 6.00 pm and weekly off, the employees of that workplace feel more satisfied than those who have 24* 7 working hours. Moreover, the organization arranges some kind of activities like fun Fridays or some sort of fun tournament that brings joy and fulfillment to the employees.
It is a good way to foster increased job satisfaction and motivation but also mitigates the risk of chronic stress-related mental health issues. By encouraging and respecting work-life balance, organizations signal their commitment to the holistic health of their employees, ultimately creating a more resilient and productive workforce.
3. Streamline Work Management
In an organization, the team bifurcation and the distribution of work responsibilities are often so strategised that they don’t have to face any work difficulties. There is a random question coming to mind, how to strategies workforce management at the workplace?
A workplace is where employees spend most of the time in a day. A strategic workflow helps the employees achieve the target, moreover, if an employee gets clarity of the future tasks they feel more accomplished and put them in a better head space. It overall leads an improved mental health at work.
4. Develop workplace flexibility
Everyone loves a flexible workplace. It fosters a healthy atmosphere. To maintain flexibility it is essential to allow the employees greater control over their work schedules and provide them options like remote work or hybrid work facilities.
Flexibility ensures managing their responsibilities more effectively, mitigating burnout, and creating an environment where employees feel trusted and valued. Moreover, a flexible work atmosphere leads to employee job satisfaction and employee engagement which ultimately contributes to a positive mental health culture within the workplace.
5. Nurture Employee Wellbeing
Maintaining mental health is tough. Management often avoids or neglects to maintain it as well. As a result, employee engagement is affected, and it brings some bad effects on company productivity as well. Certain kinds of additional training about mental well-being eliminate mental health problems and improve the overall mental health process.
Every organization needs to keep an eye on where any employee is facing any difficulties and identify the reason behind it. They can arrange seminars on stress management and training on building stress-free workplaces.
6. Promote a Positive Work Environment
A positive work environment along with zero micromanagement, or internal politics leads to mental satisfaction and employee engagement at the workplace. A positive work environment directly leads to a happy and healthy work atmosphere.
For a positive work culture, it is important to create open communication between two employees and employees to employers which helps to foster a sense of belonging and psychological safety within the workplace.
By encouraging work-life balance, and offering wellness programs, providing resources for mental health management can introduce a positive work culture which plays an important role in preventing burnout, improving morale, and establishing a mental health-oriented workplace where individuals feel empowered, valued, and mentally resilient.
Tips for Employees Dealing with Mental Health
➔ Talk About the Feelings
Every day at work is not the same for employees. Often they face challenges due to not achieving the target or to some micromanagement or internal workplace politics. Sharing feelings or talking about your problem with the management or team leader is necessary for self-health. Expressing concern, and stress clarifies one’s doubts, and problems and fosters understanding with office colleagues.
However, at the time of sharing one’s problems, it is crucial to keep balance and maintain professionalism. Employees’ unprofessional behaviour affects team dynamics. Overall, cultivating open communication can contribute to a healthier workplace culture where the individual feels supported.
➔ Find the Purpose of the Work
When employees join a company there must be some purpose behind choosing the workplace. keeping the purpose alive throughout time is one of the main techniques for getting rid of toxic work environments and maintaining mental health.
Moreover, a meaningful purpose can help navigate workplace challenges with a positive mindset, addressing office politics may require additional strategies such as effective communication, relationship-building, and understanding the organizational culture.
➔ Keep Active
When an employee avoids all internal work politics and stays positive and active towards his responsibility, it maintains mental health in the workplace as well. Due to mass workloads, and the estimated timeline, employees remain tensed and worried all the time. Simple activities like stretching, taking a walk, or practising deep breathing exercises can help reduce stress and improve focus.
Creating a supportive work environment that encourages open communication, breaks the stigma around mental health discussions, and offers resources for support can foster a positive atmosphere.
Additionally, setting realistic goals, scheduling tasks, and finding a healthy work-life balance can be the solution to maintaining mental health while actively engaging in the workplace. By integrating these practices, individuals can enhance their productivity, resilience, and overall happiness at work.
➔ Practice Relaxation Techniques
Practicing relaxation techniques can be one of the best options for maintaining own mental health in the workplace. Maintaining your peace constantly by incorporating numerous techniques like deep breathing, yoga, mindfulness, or meditation can reduce stress, enhance focus, and promote a sense of calmness.
Some kind of positive videos a short break during working hours or some random fun chit-chat provides a valuable reset for managing the workplace pressures more effectively. By integrating relaxation techniques into the daily routine, employees can build resilience against stressors, improve emotional regulation, and cultivate a positive mindset.
Creating a workplace culture that encourages and supports these practices contributes to a mentally healthy environment, fostering increased productivity and job satisfaction among employees.
Summary
To integrate and promote mental health in the workplace, the government, and many public and private organizations have come together recently. The Indian government has acknowledged the importance of mental health by promoting the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, of 2016.
It talks about the provisions related to mental illnesses, aiming to protect the rights of individuals with psychosocial disabilities. Besides, there are several National Mental Health Policies that emphasize the integration of mental health services into general healthcare. But it depends upon the companies themselves.
Moreover, Some organizations have introduced Employee Assistance Programs to provide mental health support for their employees. These programs often include counselling services and resources for managing stress and mental health challenges.
