With a quarter of employees saying they don’t have meaningful support for their mental wellness, obviously, efforts can be improved upon.
HR leaders recognize that mental health isn’t an issue that can be “solved,” there’s always more work to do. Moreover, the landscape of mental health is continuously evolving with workplace ecosystems, trends, and overall cultural shifts.
When we asked HR professionals to describe what they could do to provide more meaningful support, the open-ended responses revolved around three main themes:
- More action, in general
- Mental health days
- Promote what we have
HR can generally do more
Survey responses from HR:
I don’t believe we as an organization yet do enough. We currently just check the box, but the desire among leadership is there to improve this facet.”
We don’t offer many options, and the ones we do we don’t make it easy to obtain.”
There’s nothing like calling a spade a spade. Sometimes we have to admit that we get distracted, priorities shuffle, and we can just plain try harder in some areas. Supporting mental health is one of those areas that respondents got real and admitted they need to up their game.
More mental health days, please
Make mental health days mandatory.”
We could offer mental health days.”
This was a pretty straightforward response that we got from quite a few HR folks, that they need to “offer mental health days.” It’s likely because it’s low-hanging fruit. Days off, no questions asked, that allow staff to focus on their mental health are an easy way to support employees no matter what they’re going through.
Elizabeth Scott, MS and wellness coach, explains the magic behind this simple tool: “While one day might not solve heavy underlying problems that lead to burnout, a mental health day can provide a much-needed break to pause, regroup, and come back with greater levels of energy and a fresh, less-stressed perspective.”
Maximize whatcha’ got
We need to be encouraging employees to use resources available to them.”
We could make employees more aware that they have mental health coverage.”
The fact is, so many companies offer mental health benefits and resources and they just aren’t tooting their horn enough to their staff. Although it may seem silly when you take a step back, it’s a common trap for busy HR professionals, as our survey participants reiterated.
Keep your employees up to speed on your company’s mental health resources — without the hassle.
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