HR today: Employee wellbeing and mental health

Mental health issues affect 1 in 4 people every year (Mind) with depression & anxiety-related symptoms being the most common and this includes a huge percentage of the working population. It is having an increasingly large impact on businesses everywhere with mental health being cited as the top reason for absence over the last 5 years (with a total of 143,782,582 days being lost across the workforce) (GoodShape UK).

Ways to combat an 'always on' culture

Burnout is said to be increasing due to ‘Zoom fatigue’ and an ‘always on’ culture where some staff find it harder to switch off from work these days. This can mean that productivity dips and stress levels increase which means there’s less engagement and people are more likely to move on from the current role into something less overbearing. 

Covid-19 pandemic and mass enforced working from home and, as we all became more aware of each other’s personal lives than ever before, we also often began to talk more about how we were feeling. We've seen into colleagues homes and a more casual side to each other, and often spent time talking to other people's family members and seeing their pets. This was one of the more positive aspects to come from the pandemic as it reminded business leaders and all of us about putting people front and centre. This is where businesses can really show that they truly care about their people, linking to helping staff feel more valued which can help with retention.

Wellbeing is also about the health & fitness of employees and encouraging a healthy lifestyle which can be a sensitive issue, but is critical for ensuring everyone is doing their part to be as healthy as possible. We came together to reflect, support, and share over lockdowns and business is no different so keeping an open and, importantly, an unjudgemental dialogue over this is really important.

Innovate your HR to drive employee wellbeing

Firstly ensuring you have a robust process in place to track reasons for absence will help you monitor employee wellbeing in your HR solution. Once you know you have the right tracking tools, you can use in-depth reporting to find where you may have stress or mental health-related issues across the business. These reports can help you and your managers to take action where needed and support the affected employees.

Fostering a solid culture of wellbeing is an important step in making your company a safe space to be open about mental health and wellbeing. You can put on internal events or webinars sharing any benefits or support available to employees when it comes to mental wellbeing and make sure there is an open communication channel for if and when it is needed. Using your HR Tech you can ensure there is always visibility of your resources, services, or benefits available to employees through company documents and policy functions. 

Managers and HR should always encourage employees to take enough leave and at regular intervals throughout the year. With a good HR solution, this information can be made available to employees, managers and HR so there is always visibility of calendars to show when leave has been taken and when it is next booked for. If you are tracking time worked you will also have visibility of who is working too late and needs encouragement to take time for themselves too.

Identifying a wellbeing champion or a group of champions through your HR solution is a brilliant way to highlight who employees can go to if they need support and do not wish to discuss it with management. The more routes to help you provide your staff with, the more likely they are to seek help should they need it.

How can Appogee HR help?

Here’s a closer look at how some of the features we offer in our tools can help you with Employee Wellbeing and Mental Health

Appogee Leave: Our online absence management tool is for tracking and reporting on sickness, holiday, or any kind of absence (including mental health days) allowing you to report on why your staff are taking sick days and then take action.

Appogee HR Essentials: Our core HR management solution includes, company document management (to hold all of your policies or any document including adverts for events you’re holding for mental health and wellbeing or benefits such as private health care) Essentials also includes Appogee Leave so you can track all kinds of absences to keep an eye on stress levels. 

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