Essential Employee Mental Health Solutions to Combat the Great Resignation

The mental health of employees remains a top concern and priority for organizations. Taking time to check in with your team is critical to providing a healthy workplace culture and retaining talent.

Over the last year, a lot has changed, and Covid-19 has impacted organizational practices that have caused employees to struggle with mental health challenges including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and burnout. This is causing many people to make big changes, some of which involve switching jobs. This has led to what is known as “The Great Resignation.”

What can leaders do?

As a leader, taking care of your team needs to be a top priority. As far as supporting their mental health, many skills that you already utilize as a leader will coincide with strategizing your mental health check-ins. The first step to this is recognizing mental health as a collective issue that your organization needs to address and provide all leaders with the tools and skills to effectively help. This can help reduce the stigma around mental health and make it psychologically safe for employees to reach out for professional support.

How does mental health relate to employee retention?

Due to the impact of Covid-19, many organizations had to undergo infrastructure changes involving layoffs, furloughs, and remote transitions. This has caused employees to seek out other opportunities that better align and support their personal and professional needs.

How to Help:

Here are a few suggestions to begin developing your mental health awareness plan:

1. Start with regular check-ins.To help combat “The Great Resignation,” providing mental health check-ins can show employees that you care enough to dedicate valuable time just for them. It can also provide an opportunity to learn more about their unique needs, goals, and what they value so that you can provide more tailored support. It’s important to ask specific questions about how you can support them, going beyond just asking how they’ve been. Giving them the chance to tell you what they need and addressing how you’re able to help can make all the difference- make the effort to show you truly care.
2. Create safety when talking about mental health. It’s important to establish that discussions about mental health with supervisors are an important part of communication. Being able to disclose struggles can have a major impact on worker efficiency and overall health. Talking about mental health within your organization is a great way to normalize these conversations, reduce stigma, and to ease into them when it comes time for one-on-one discussions.
3. Integrate DEI into your mental health strategy.Employees from diverse backgrounds can face lack of representation, microaggressions, and other stressors that impact their mental health and psychological safety at work. People’s needs are different and come at different times in their life’s journey. Regardless of your role and seniority, be courageous and share your needs, be thoughtful in trying to understand each other, and be conscious that mental health means something different for everyone.
4. Support the “whole employee.” Encourage employees to prioritize their wellbeing by making the effort to learn about their interests and what truly matters to them. This starts with acknowledging that engagement at work often begins with the state of our personal lives – ranging from joy to stress. Taking into account individual wellbeing, both others’ and your own, is an essential way to support your team. Remember, we are people first and employees second.

Looking to start a conversation about mental health in your workplace but not sure where to start? Retain and support your employees today. Contact one of our experts to learn more about leadership development training and employee wellbeing.