Blog
Mental Health: Introducing Your Team Back into the Workplace
Why is Mental Health Important?
We all have mental health like we have physical health, but at any time you can become mentally unwell, just as you can become physically unwell. In some cases, this can lead to long-term absences from work.
Mental health issues are not always easy to spot as they present themselves in different ways. To find out more about different mental health problems, we suggest taking a look at the Mind website.
Challenges During Coronavirus
Coronavirus has raised lots of concerns surrounding employee wellbeing. Worries surrounding Coronavirus have been different for each individual and could include health and wellbeing, financial or job security.
Going through a pandemic has been tough for many people and therefore you should take time to understand your employees, communicate and support them if you haven't already.
Identifying Problems Remotely
Many employers are finding that identifying mental health problems remotely can be a real challenge. It is heavily reliant on your employees opening up and telling you what is wrong. Usually, if an employee is showing signs of struggle with work it will be identified early due to being able to see behaviours directly. Whilst working in the office changes in behaviour were easy to spot, by the way they were acting or how much they were contributing in discussions.
To identify these issues now is much the same as before, however, you have to judge this on their interaction remotely, work levels and try to increase one to one communication. If something does not seem right, you should try to act on this quickly.
Going Back to Work
A key thing to consider is that during this pandemic, isolation and staying home have had a huge impact on many individuals. People are working in different environments and dealing with different situations. For example, working from bed due to space issues, complete isolation- due to living alone or dealing with distracting situations or home-schooling.
Going back to work after long periods of staying at home has caused a lot of anxiety for individuals for many different reasons. For example, concerns about office cleanliness, human contact or even worries about childcare.
Your Understanding
Employee Surveys
Ask your employees how they are feeling with surveys. Ask their concerns and what they want when they are returning to work. This way you can have a true understanding of their needs and how they fit in with the plans you have for your business.
What Can You Do?
There are many different ways that you can tackle back to work anxieties. We spoke to our networking round table to see how they are approaching the back to work worries.
A/B Teams
One company is introducing back their team on an A/B basis. This means having a rota whereby half the team is in at a time and having only certain bubbles of people in the office at once. By having these groups, they will not have to come into contact with any more people than necessary and therefore this makes it a safer environment to work in.
Allow Flexibility
Another company we spoke to allowed just those who wanted to come into the office first. This encouraged the rest of the team to follow in their footsteps. If your industry allows it having office champions is a great way to introduce people back and calm any anxieties.
Case by Case Basis
Remember this will not be ‘one size fits all’ and the way you approach any issues will have to be done on a case by case basis. Individuals are very different, and their experiences of lockdown will have been different.
Mental Health First Aiders
If you don't have much understanding of mental health there are lots of courses available with St Johns Ambulance. Whereby you can designate people to champion mental health and attend those courses. If possible, you can do further training with line managers to ensure the awareness surrounding mental health issues are covered.
Communicate
It’s important to communicate the approach you’re taking in line with health & safety guidelines. It could be as simple as an emailed PDF or uploading useful information to your company portal. This paired with any other useful information and courses they could take to take control of their mental health and overall wellbeing, for example, yoga or meditation.
Resources
If your colleagues are expressing concerns about Coronavirus there are lots of resources on the Mind website for free at the moment. There is lots of help from professionals with charities such as Mind and Samaritans, make these resources available to your employees and use them to educate yourself.
