COLUMN | Mental Health Awareness
We have recently celebrated Mental Health Awareness Week. I am sure it was an engaging and stimulating week for those who participated, but how should we focus on mental well-being for the other 51 weeks?
We know stress and burnout have increased over the last few years. From a recent Gallup survey, people feeling stress the previous day jumped from 31 percent to 43 percent, 63 percent say stress impacts their home life, and 50 percent of people at work want help.
Two of the biggest causes of stress at work are, firstly, workload and, secondly, Interpersonal relationships. So, what can you do as a good leader?
Firstly, create a psychologically safe environment. How do I do that? You do it by being the first to show vulnerability. When the leader says, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I am feeling off at the moment’, it is much more likely that the team will open up and follow.
Secondly, you can notice the body language and listen to your team. Ask questions like ‘How are you?’, ‘What is frustrating you at present?’ ‘What would make your engagement stronger?’
One of the things I would do regularly with teams was a quick survey in our monthly meeting. Get everyone to rate (one to ten, one being poor, ten being excellent) where they are on three to five areas. These areas could be learning, enjoyment, workload, stress, energy, etc. The number is not so significant, but what is important is how someone has changed over time, i.e. are they trending down or up? Then the next part of the conversation is ‘What would help you move from a ‘five’ to a ‘seven’, and what could the team do to help?
Thirdly, if you want to get into the details of mental well-being, you could carry out a mental well-being risk assessment.
https://www.forum.org.nz/assets/Uploads/Oct-2022-Updated-MWBD-workbook.pdf
You can discuss the above guide with your team and then agree on what actions you can take to alleviate issues. The most important thing you can do for your team is to help them identify the issues or barriers to enjoying work and then help them redesign their work to overcome these issues. This is one of the most research-proven ways of improving mental well-being at work.
