Photo by Damir Spanic on Unsplash
As we shifted to the new normal some folks think that the new workplace environment (home) became a prison. Locked up in the corners of your house without someone to talk to creates a huge impact on the mental health of others. You may not experience a drastic impact but for sure if you are in the work from home set-up you are also experiencing such.
Mental health has been one of the things my workplace considers as a priority. They believe that having an employee working with them in good shape in physical, intellectual, mental, and emotional would bring good results to them. I would agree with that especially on the mental and emotional side. Being a Clinical Psychology student, this is one of the factors that I am grateful to my company.
To make sure that our mental health concerns are being taken care of, we have seminars and training via Facebook live and Webex with the resident health professionals to discuss the issues like stress at work and how we can cope up. Also, they are sharing best practices on how we can help others in addressing it.
These are a samples of the poster in our Facebook Groups
In our last session, my takeaway is in the acronym LLL
Look - when addressing someone who is experiencing a mental breakdown. Look at them and show that you are concerned, some say that when we talk to them look at them to the eye to show to them that we are sincere in what we are talking about.
Listen - focus on what they are sharing, do not interrupt, and when we listen, we listen without the premise of responding immediately. At times, we already processed what we are planning to say to someone. By default, we think that we have the solution available already to them and they just need to listen to what we say and not the other way around.
Link - we connect with them a saying says " a concerned friend is way better than a trained professional which can be distant at times". Sometimes, they just need a friend that would support them and not judge. Build a link to the person.
To top up everything last October 9th Friday we are given a paid time off and it was termed "Mental Health Day-off" and the message below is a part of the quoted message of our boss coming from our mailer.
Use this day to refresh – meditation, a hike, a picnic with loved ones. Write a song, get back to your journal. And, if you feel comfortable, share your Mental Health Day activities, photos or revelations, on the Global Wellness Yammer page using the hashtag, #RUOk. We will make sure we share what we did to ease the stress.
How about you? What are some actions that your management is doing addressing mental health?