In this the second of our two final articles for 2019, we provide a summary of our top mental health articles. We have written a quick overview for each and provide a link back to the original article that also has the research article links. In this way, you will have all the popular themed posts for 2019 accessible from this one article.
Mentally Healthy Workplaces
One of our top mental health articles is 3 Steps Towards a Mentally Healthy Workplace that discusses the importance of encouraging employees to seek help as a first step. Your employees need to feel that they are in a safe environment so that if they reach out, they do not feel stigmatised.
The second step is to provide training for your employees around mental health conditions and support those who seek help. Finally, ensuring sustainable best practice to support a mentally healthy workplace is a sound third step to managing employee mental health.
Psychological Safety Climate
One of our top mental health articles for 2019 is Do You Know Your Psychological Safety Climate Benchmark? Measuring the psychological safety climate in your business is critical to providing a mentally healthy workplace. The cost of workplace mental health disorders is high with rising stress claims. Governments around the world are focusing on ways to address this issue.
The article describes how business can establish a psychological safety climate (PSC) benchmark and provides a range of low-risk and high-risk predictors. Organisations can use predictors to guide them in managing employee mental health.
Investing in Workplace Mental Health
In our article, Investing in Workplace Mental Health Makes Financial Sense, we look at why organisations should invest in employee mental health. KPMG crunches the numbers. This article details the return on investment in providing mental health programmes for employees. Investment in workplace mental health can improve workforce participation rates by as much as 30%.
Towards an Integrated Approach
We provide nine ways for organisations aiming Towards An Integrated Approach to Workplace Mental Health. These are practical solutions for businesses adopting an integrated approach to workplace mental health. Business needs to focus on the steps that they can take to break down the barriers to encourage their staff to seek help and address stigma.
Strategies to Manage Workplace Mental Health
Some research developed by the University of Tasmania’s Work, Health and Wellbeing Network offers 3 Strategies To Better Manage Workplace Mental Health. The 3 strategies that businesses should try are: to undertake stigma reduction and mental health literacy programmes, ensure clear roles and implement flexible working practices.
Employee Wellbeing and Productivity
Happy employees are productive employees, at least according to a review conducted by the British Safety Council. Fair wages, relationships with line managers and colleagues, job design, degree of responsibility and authority, workload, working hours and opportunities for career development are all vital components of workers’ wellbeing.
One of our top mental health articles, It’s Time to Link Employee Wellbeing to Productivity, looks at this research and assesses the link between wellbeing and productivity.
Employee Engagement, Burnout and Stress
Employers have a keen interest in one of our top mental health articles, Employee Engagement, Burnout, Stress – Signs and Tips. This article presents research findings on stress, engagement, and burnout. Less than 25% of employees are highly engaged, and 39% are only moderately engaged in their work.
Employee engagement globally dropped from 65% in 2015 to 63% in 2016. Seven out of 10 US employees report feeling disengaged at work. We provide strategies for employers to improve support for their staff and discuss the signs of stress with tips to reduce and respond to symptoms.
The Long-Term Effects of Workplace Bullying
This article looks at employees who are bullied. The bullying includes the spreading of rumours and repeated insults aimed at changing the image of the victim; resulting in feelings of guilt, shame and diminishing self-esteem.
We offer primary, secondary and tertiary anti-bullying interventions that organisations can draw on to prevent workplace bullying, support victims and reduce the long-term effects. Click through to read, Does Workplace Bullying Have Long Term Effects?
The Impact of Work on Our Mental Health
Our article, How Can Work Impact Employee Mental Health? notes high job demands, low job control, high effort-reward imbalance, low relational justice, little procedural justice, role stress, bullying and low social support in the workplace are associated with a higher risk of developing common mental health problems. As employers managing employee mental health working arrangements are critical. The article offers strategies to improve work conditions to reduce the impact on employee mental health.
The Impact of Financial Stress on Mental Health
One of our top mental health articles is The Impact of Financial Stress on Mental Health. Several countries around the world, including Australia, are in an economic downturn that is causing financial stress. In Australia, one-third of people are carrying high levels of personal debt. Some are suffering from mortgage stress where their homes are worth less than their bank loans.
Unemployment levels are high, economic growth is slow, and wages growth almost non-existent. Couple this with growing casualised and part-time employment and we have a nation under stress.
For this article, we look at research that links financial stress and loss of personal control with depression, sleep loss, relationships, conflict and domestic violence. We look at the statistics and offer strategies to deal with financial stress.
Workplace Sexual Harassment
Many of our readers find our article, Workplace Sexual Harassment: Survey Key Findings to be useful given the high profile the topic has in the media. The #MeToo movement and the high-profile court cases against popular and well-known identities add to the focus. The Australian Human Rights Commission released a report on the 4th national survey on workplace sexual harassment. We present some of the critical points.
Which Mental Health Theme Will You Invest In?
Our article, Which Mental Health Theme Will You Use Next? looks at Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs), Mental Health First Aid training, Cognitive-based Therapy, e-Mental Health services, and MicroLearning to teach strategies and coping mechanisms. We summarise the benefits and outcomes that you can expect from each of these options to guide you in your next mental health theme.
Online Employee Mental Health Training
The Tap into Safety Mental Health Training increases mental health literacy on workplace stressors to teach effective coping strategies using animated storytelling. We have several out of the box employee mental health modules.
The training can be completed online, on tablets and mobile phones in under 5 minutes and draws on a MicroLearning methodology. Every training module offers suggestions on where employees can seek help.
Training costs as little as $10 per module and you can get started for as little as $500. If you would like to know more about our Mental Health Training, trial a free trial, contact us, or get started today.