How To Look After The Mental Health Of Your Remote Employees

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic is centred on a contagious disease that affects the human physical body, its impact on numerous other aspects of our extremely helpful, particularly mental health, has been catastrophic.

 

A few months into the pandemic, a Metlife yearly basis benefits report revealed:

• 44% of employees are now concerned about their physical, mental, and social well-being.
• 80% of respondents believed their employers have an obligation to care for their health and well-being, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, up from 73% before the pandemic.

 

Another study from the beginning of 2021 found a 50% increase in depressive episodes and a 60% drop throughout focus among workers of all ages.

More recently, a recent survey of 2,800 employeesconducted by the global staffing company Robert Half found that more than four in ten employees (44%) are more burned out on the job at the moment than a year ago. This is an increase from 34% in a comparable 2020 poll.

In addition, nearly half of all American workers have experienced mental health problems because the COVID-19 disease outbreak began.

 

When you fail to support your employees' mental health

Based on these figures alone, it's obvious why employee psychological health is a top priority for businesses as they attempt to adjust to a completely new work environment that, for most companies, will involve various remote work.

What happens when companies fail to prioritise employee mental health? What are the real-world consequences of employee burnout?

 

According to a current Gallup study on stress and burnout, employees who say they frequently or always encounter burnout at work are:

• 63% more probable to call in sick
• 23% more probable to seek medical attention in an emergency room
• 2.6 times more probable to be actively looking for a new job
• 13% less convinced in their abilities

What can businesses do about this? To begin, acknowledge that accommodating your employees' mental health is about more than just preventing burnout; it is also about establishing a welcoming organisation that addresses your employees' health and well-being needs no matter where they are situated.

 

Here are a few comprehensive solutions that businesses all over the world are using to care for their employees' mental health:

Take a moment to reflect

Leading up to the disease outbreak, 55% of American workers did not use all their paid holiday time, and when they did, they frequently brought their work with them. One of the major reasons employees are hesitant to take time off is that they can't find the "right" time and are afraid their boss will judge them.

After the pandemic, things have only gotten worse. Employees are putting in more hours and experiencing heavier workloads because of long-term remote work while postponing vacation because they have nowhere to go and feel they can't justify it.

 

Allow them a break

After more than one year and a half at home, more and more businesses are turning to company-wide mental health days off as a solution.

LinkedIn made headlines in April when it offered its 15,900 full-time employees a compensated week off to counter burnout and start encouraging them to unplug and recharge. Hubspot and Hootsuite have recently followed suit. If a week seems too long, companies such as SAP, Cisco, Google, and Thomson Reuters have implemented a company-wide mental health day.

This tactic is effective because it demonstrates that your organization understands enough about its employees' health to concentrate a time of relaxation specifically for this purpose, even if it means dropping those hours of production efficiency.

The advantages extend beyond the actual days off. Because your company is proactively introducing time off, it alleviates the extra pressure that individual employees experience when mustering the effort and energy to request any number of hours off themselves. 

Furthermore, because everyone is out of the office simultaneously, employees don't have to feel guilty about delegating their work to someone else, which 41% of employees do when taking paid time off ( PTO ).

 

Your employees require your assistance

Your employees will bear the brunt of the uncertainty and anxiety as the workplace moves forward in the coming months (and years) in the face of remote and hybrid work. No matter how adaptable they are, this will have a negative impact on their mental health.

By listening carefully to and addressing the major stressors in your employees' lives, you can avoid burnout and mental health issues and establish yourself as a compassionate, progressive employer that individuals desire to work for. That will be a strong draw in these times when employers are having difficulty finding qualified candidates.

 

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