Mental Health Is a Huge Part of Who You Are - Here’s How to Prioritize This at Work

What role does your company play in supporting your mental health? Well, “everyone is on their own journey when it comes to mental health, which means it’s important for companies to lay the groundwork of providing a safe space and resources for their employees – no matter where they are in their journey.”

Ensuring our colleagues wellness is beneficial for everyone’s individual fulfillment and the company’s success since mental health can affect someone’s productivity, communication, job performance, and physical capability to function daily. Building a culture that destigmatizes mental health ensures that colleagues can feel comfortable communicating and sharing their mental health experiences and taking the right measures for themselves without fear that it will jeopardize their jobs.

And, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, job seekers are increasingly listing mental health as a top consideration when accepting a job offer. Studies on how the pandemic affected us “showed a huge uptick in workers who believed their employers are more concerned about employees' mental health than before and agree that how employers support mental health will be an important consideration for them when they look for future work.”

Here we will dive more into advice on protecting your mental health at work, how companies can help, and what a psychologically safe workplace looks like.

To begin, do you have any tips on how to best protect your mental health at work?

It’s important to build specific strategies into your life that will foster sustainability. For instance:

1: Build in breaks throughout the workday. Even if you have a packed schedule, you can still build in at least five minutes every hour to decompress. Often, you can use a version of the Pomodoro Method and dedicate 45 minutes for heads down work and then 15 minutes to decompress. That way, your 45 minutes are action-packed and highly productive, and your 15 minutes of decompression reinvigorate you.

2: Prioritize what makes you happy and supports your mental health --- and make it non-negotiable. You can achieve this through regular workouts and put workouts on your work calendar as public. This is so your team can see that you have regular commitments after normal work hours (which should not be scheduled over unless absolutely unavoidable), and so you can stay motivated and productive throughout the day knowing that you’ve got something to look forward to!

What are your top three pieces of advice on how to handle a conversation about mental health with a manager?

Here’s how we would encourage a colleague to think about holding a conversation about mental health with a manager:

1: Self-reflect. Take a deep breath to first understand what you’re experiencing. How long have you been feeling this way? Do you think it is episodic or chronic? Can you decipher if it suddenly came upon you or is related to somethingthat happened in your personal life, work life, or via a macro-stressor (e.g., COVID-19)? Second, understand what the impact is on your work performance (such as in regards to productivity, missing work, or a lack of connection to peers).

2: Explore your comfort level. You are in control here, and it’s up to you how much you feel comfortable sharing. If you realize that you are not comfortable speaking to your manager, then perhaps turn to someone in HR or another manager you may feel closer to. What’s important here is that you feel psychologically safe when opening up to this person.

3: Share your experience. Set up time on the calendar. Don’t cut your time short; budget enough time to have a fruitful, open conversation because your mental health matters! During the conversation, remember to be clear about how your mental health experiences are impacting your work. You can also ask for your manager’s help. Know that while they are likely not a therapist, they may be able to point you to someone at the company who can provide the best support. In the end, it’s about co-creating a solution on how to seek the right support so that you can bring your best self to work.

Psychological safety is about truly believing that you can speak up, express your ideas and feelings, and take risks without fear of judgment by those around you.

If you feel psychologically safe in the various environments and with the people you surround yourself with, then you’ll likely find that you will perform better, be more productive, and open channels of innovation and creativity! Just think of a time in your life when you felt proud of yourself and fulfilled. It’s likely that you were in an environment that allowed you to challenge yourself because you felt the support and engagement of those around you.