Best Mental Health Support Strategies

We've all seen them: those generic work excuse notes. Here's the thing: they often fall short of what employees truly need. What if we offered more than just a piece of paper? Here's how companies can truly support their teams facing life challenges: ⚫ Family Loss: Going through a loss? A few days off isn't enough. Offer extended leave and a flexible return plan to ease the transition back to work. ⚫ Miscarriage: This isn't just a physical issue. Provide generous leave, access to grief counseling, and understanding during this difficult time. ⚫ Child's Hospitalization: Medical bills don't disappear with a get-well card. Consider extending healthcare support and covering unexpected costs. ⚫ Chronic Illness: "Feel better" just doesn't cut it. Offer ongoing adjustments to work roles and schedules to create a sustainable work environment for employees with chronic health conditions. ⚫ Financial Stress: Financial worries are a heavy burden. Explore emergency financial assistance and flexible pay options to alleviate some of the pressure. ⚫ Burnout: A quick break isn't a solution. Offer mandatory time off, access to wellness resources, and address the root causes of burnout to prevent future issues. ⚫ Workplace Bullying: Policies are a start, but take action! Enforce strict anti-bullying rules to create a safe and respectful work environment. ⚫ Returning Parents: Re-entry is hard. Support them with a gradual return schedule and flexible hours to help them adjust. ⚫ Injury Recovery: Focus on security, not just recovery. Protect their job and adjust duties as needed to ensure a smooth return to work. ⚫ Caring for a Sick Child: Shouldn't be a choice between family and work. Offer guaranteed leave with job security to alleviate stress and allow them to focus on their child's well-being. ⚫ Eldercare: Taking care of aging parents takes time. Show flexibility and understanding towards their eldercare responsibilities. ⚫ Mental Exhaustion: Rest isn't enough. Offer structured mental health breaks and support programs to manage stress and promote emotional well-being. ⚫ Personal Trauma: Healing requires support. Provide access to professional therapists and recovery groups to help employees navigate difficult experiences. ⚫ Disability Needs: Accessibility is more than ramps. Regularly assess and adjust the workspace to meet individual needs and ensure everyone can thrive. ⚫ Workplace Safety: Safety isn't an afterthought. Implement and enforce strong safety measures to prevent injuries in the first place. We can do better than shuffling paperwork. Let's stand by our teams, not just oversee them. By prioritizing employee well-being over policies, we create a win-win situation for everyone. A happy, healthy, and supported workforce is a productive and successful workforce. What are your thoughts on supporting employees through life challenges? Share your experiences in the comments! #empathy #worklifebalance

👩🏻💻 The Do’s and Don’ts of your employee’s mental health & well-being. 🤝 This isn’t about pointing fingers, but acknowledging education around the health of your employees must be PRIORITIZED. Good mental health & good management at work are key parts when creating a healthy SUSTAINABLE culture. So, what does that look like? IT INCLUDES: ✅ Asking employees questions on what they need, and how you can best support them. ✅ Top-down, bottom-up. Everyone is included and will take part in workplace wellness. ✅ Sharing vulnerable as it will also encourage others to speak up. ✅ Leading with presence and embracing the “soft skills” in leadership. ✅ Checking in with employees continuously, and practicing open communication. ✅ Creating psychological safety that is reinforced by every decision and action a leader makes daily. ✅ Offering flexibility in a hybrid or remote model. ✅ Providing mentorship, coaching, and/ or therapy for employees. ✅ Empowering employees with different wellness resources, education, tools, and practices. ✅ Looking through the lens of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. ✅ Getting to the root cause of stress to prevent employee burnout. IT DOES NOT INCLUDE: ❌ Giving employees a week off and thinking this will solve everything. ❌ Only certain levels of managers, and team leaders, take part in workplace wellness. ❌ Band-aid approaches. ❌ Starting wellness programs with no prior questions of what is truly needed. ❌ Thinking that employees will “take advantage” of mental health days. ❌ A subscription to a meditation app believing that all employees will benefit from this. ❌ Back-to-back meetings and no scheduled breaks. ❌ Emails being sent after 7 pm from anyone in the organization. ❌ Decision-making based on emotional reactions. ❌ Believing Mindfulness is a woo-woo practice and dismissing any introduction to it. ❌ Fear-based performance measures, “motivation” and goals. ............ BURNOUT is both an individual and organizational responsibility that stems from internal & external factors. It's not about just being resilient… especially after what we have been through the past few years! 🤓🧠 Our mental health & well-being matter and employees want to work in environments that prioritize wellness and support them. ............ So, I’m curious to hear... Are you focused on inclusion, diversity, and equity when offering wellness benefits & workplace programs? 👇 #mentalhealth #remotework #leadership #wellness #culture

What did I learn from five years of planning global Mental Health Awareness Month (May) and World Mental Health Day (October) speaker events and programs?? Here are my top 4 tips: 1. Content that is inclusive of all people facing mental health challenges, and not just individuals with diagnosed mental health conditions helps reduce stigma and should be part of any emotional well-being curriculum. ▶ EVERYONE experiences both eustress and distress, and persistent distress causes chronic health conditions. Read that sentence again. 2. Mental Health programs in the workplace should include mental health challenges that happen due to work stressors. ▶ Psychosocial risk factors at work, like excessive workload, poor prioritization skills, lack of autonomy, inability to time manage, etc...are much more harmful than they seem to emotional well-being (see the infographic below). 3. Programs need to be dynamic (not didactic) and should offer resources tailored to the root problems. ▶ A few years back, I stopped bringing in speakers who did not offer practical tips that could be applied in the workplace. Meditation, walks, and journaling are incredible tools, but they aren't for everyone and don't fix everything. -Attendance skyrocketed when I held sessions on topics that targeted workplace stressors. 4. Programs and resources are table stakes, but they alone don't fix the problem! ▶ We honor these milestones, because stigma exists. At the same time, if we do not address challenges to workplace culture with long-term strategies, we are merely helping people get well and placing them back in to the same situations that made them unwell in the first place. Programs alone aren't the answer AND we need to start the conversation somewhere. If you are interested in having me speak, consult, or coach in your organization, please visit my website and book a free consultation: https://lnkd.in/ekC_fn8H #mentalhealthmatters #workplacewellbeing #stopthestigma

As we move from awareness to action on World Mental Health day, Ludmila Praslova, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP, Âû,'s work on the importance of emotional inclusion to mental health and well-being at work is a powerful tool. As she explains, toxic positivity- demands to be cheerful 24/7 regardless of the situation or circumstances we and others are facing- makes us sick. Emotional inclusion- creating space for our and others' authentic emotions- on the other hand, supports belonging, authenticity, and well-being. If we want to truly support mental health, holding space for people to be not okay and not requiring people to fake happiness in our workplaces is critical. Actionable strategies for cultivating emotional inclusion at work: ✅ Normalize emotional truthfulness and honest answers to questions like "How are you?" ✅ Check the knee-jerk reaction to say the same old "You will be OK" and instead asking how the other person would like to be supported. ✅ Avoid judging emotions and check our cultural and personal biases.   ✅ Ensure that cultural and power-based preferences for emotional expression are not embedded in systems for high-stakes decisions, especially in talent and performance management processes. ✅ Create physical spaces to process emotion. Flexibility in when and where we work can make a difference. ✅ Prevent emotional distress caused by work, be it from overwork or from ignoring concerns about bullying. How do you champion emotional inclusion and push back against toxic positivity at work? #WorldMentalHealthDay #WellBeingMatters #WellBeingAtWork #MentalHealth #MentalHealthMatters -- As always, thoughts and views are my own and do not represent those of my current employer.

Mental health matters. So many of us see and feel the need to better address mental health in the workplace. We experience the relationship between mental wellness and safety. We understand how distraction can cause injuries. We know mental states impact incidents and near misses. If we really want to make a difference in this space, I'm curious if many organizations are doing these five things: 1) Bring your EAP provider in front of your executive team on a regular basis to provide an overview of how they are supporting your organization. Including metrics on EAP utilization and continuous improvement. 2) Dedicate executive leadership team time to discuss how they 'show up' as leaders for mental wellness. 3) Provided front line leaders with the skills to build trust to make it safe for employees to talk with them about mental wellness issues. 4) Verify the ease of access, speed of service and the quality of mental health services from an employee perspective. 5) Clear and frequent communication that mental wellness resources are 24/7/365 for your team members and their families. Please share your experiences and any additional thoughts! SafetyAnd Consulting Associates, Inc. SafeStart, A division of Electrolab National Safety Council #safety #mentalwellness #psychologicalsafety

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Here are four things every leader can do to support the mental wellbeing of their employees: ✔ Support their use of PTO by providing coverage for critical responsibilities. If they feel obligated to check email every day on vacation, they won't come back feeling as recuperated. Think of this as a long-term investment in each team member. ✔ Role model the above by disconnecting from work during your own PTO. You're not abandoning your team; you're setting a positive example that time off = not working. It gives them permission to do the same. ✔ Avoid emails/IMs outside of work hours. They set the expectation for an "always on" culture. Can you save your evening email in drafts until the following morning? ✔ Check in with your team members, especially during times of change, higher workloads, etc. You don't have to pretend to be a therapist, but you can hear them out, empathize, and offer practical support and resources. #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth #MentalHealthMatters

Most workplaces today focus on “me” (the employee) to “handle it”. Through the EAP, therapy, self-awareness, mindfulness, meditation, self reflection, EQ and resilience training. All those things are good and needed. But there’s a catch. And it’s a big one. All self-care “me” practices are built off of one critical foundation: A solid support system - the “we”. And our support systems are crumbling. If we don’t have a support system we will feel: 🔅 Unseen and misunderstood 🔅 Uncared for and unvalued 🔅 Lonely & isolated 🔅 Unmotivated The very things that increase the stress we are seeking self-care to solve. Its a dangerous cycle that we can’t “me” our way out of. ⬇️ In our aggregated data from 2021-2023, we found that anywhere from 22-35% of your workforce is beginning their workday empty. Because they don’t have a solid support system outside of work. Others have such a high stress level at work that adding one more “thing to do” to their plate will go undone. Even if that’s self-care. Therefore expecting employees in these situations to “handle” their wellbeing at work without your support will add to their stress and backfire. It’s scientifically impossible to thrive and flourish without a support system. And we desperately need them in our organizations today. Leadership support counts more than peer support. We need them both. ⬇️ Leaders need to learn to be the “we” for the “me”. Or the “me” will burnout. #ShowingUp #SupportiveLeadership

𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘂𝗽 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗻𝘅𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆. 𝗬𝗲𝗽, 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴. I've been sitting on this post for a while, debating if I should share. But not doing so felt off, because I'm very committed to changing the course of mental health. Especially in the workplace. Therefore, it's time. I believe we all have a mental health story. Although, I used to think I didn't, that I was different. I used to think that because I studied and worked in health and well-being that I couldn't "struggle," let alone share it. That I should be able to handle it; to figure it out. I also used to revert back to what I learned as a child: 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗱𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆. But when I finally surrendered over 13 years ago, my life changed. There's more to share, and one day I will, but for now I want to honor my goal of 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲. So here goes: The workplace is not responsible for "curing" my anxiety, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗜 𝗱𝗼 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 in not making it worse. How? Here are a handful of ways (there's plenty more): ✅ Create a culture and climate that are in alignment. This means policies and procedures, for all to follow, and adhere to, are needed. ✅ Truly focusing on inclusion in the workplace, because this my friends, is the golden ticket to mental health. ✅ Establish predictable work schedules for hourly workers. ✅ Put forth healthy policies that award the time, and hourly pay rates, for employees to get preventive care, go for a walk, grieve, etc. (honestly, it's an endless list which all get at health equity). ✅ Establish regular performance feedback loops. ✅ Regularly ask for employee feedback and act upon it. ✅ Verbally recognize employees for a job well done. ✅ Outline career paths so employees have visibility into growing their career (if desired) and salary. ✅ Encourage Leadership to do the hard, self-reflection work. ✅ Elevate employees to manager roles once they've been supported through trainings and self-reflection. ✅ Help employees understand mental health leave of absences. This mental health work? It's what a Well-being Officer/Leader does, and can do, as a #Fractional member of a team. DM me to connect. No company is too small. #mentalhealthatwork #leadershipinsights #workplacewellbeing #chiefwellbeing

I never encourage people to stay where they are being harmed. So if you can leave, make that move! However, if you can't immediately do so, or you’re in the hallway waiting for the next door to open, here’s what you can do: 1. Elevate your emotional intelligence even if that of your manager is low. You don't have to lower yours. You can still lead without the title. High emotional intelligence isn’t reserved for people managers. Your actions and attitude can inspire others, regardless of your position. Use your voice. Speak up to be added to projects and do your research on professional development courses or conferences you'd like to participate in.🗣️ 2. Advocating for yourself is crucial in any career. Don't be afraid to express your interest. Researching and being well-prepared shows your commitment and dedication to your growth, which can be appreciated by your superiors…or recruiters. 3. Avoid the gossip. Create your boundaries and maintain them. Office gossip can be tempting, but it rarely leads to anything positive. Dodging the dissing will maintain your integrity and build a reputation as someone who is trustworthy and professional. And when you leave, you can leave with your hands and mind clean. 4. Journal to release and document to defend. Keeping a journal can be a powerful tool for managing stress and documenting your experiences at work. Use it to release your emotions. It can also serve as a record of your accomplishments and interactions, which can be handy when it comes time for performance reviews or addressing workplace issues. 5. Find a therapist if you can—process work issues outside of work. Work-related stress and challenges can take a toll on your mental well-being. Seeking therapy is a proactive step to ensure you have a safe and confidential space to discuss your concerns, manage stress, and develop coping strategies. I tell all my clients to prioritize their well-being over everything. And that they have more power and agency than they know. Be strategic with how you practice self-care around work. Toxic workplaces can really do a number on you. Know your limits. Drop a 💡 if you found these helpful.