5 key factors to promote mental health in the workplace

1. Ensuring a Healthy Environment.

Providing a healthy work environment for your talents brings significant benefits to their well-being. Whether through working conditions, training, or cultural elements, talents need to feel good when they work. The goal is to ensure psychological safety. All talents should feel free to share their ideas, opinions, make mistakes, and most importantly, be vulnerable. They must feel free to be themselves. Social gatherings will help them open up more easily and without shame. Over time, through meetings and team activities, talents will get to know one another and be more inclined to trust their colleagues. It’s about creating a sense of closeness.

2. Maintaining Good Communication.

It’s often said—communication is the key to success. This holds especially true when talking about mental health in the workplace. Everyone experiences tough moments. Knowing that you can talk about those moments and be heard helps get through them. Being able to speak openly with a colleague or direct supervisor allows emotions to be expressed and actions to be taken to improve the situation. One-on-one meetings can be set up to foster communication. At Recursyve, every talent in the administrative department has a weekly meeting with their immediate supervisor to talk about how they’re doing. Whether it lasts 10 minutes or an hour, what matters is that everyone has space to express themselves. From experience, we can confirm that these meetings are enriching on many levels.

3. Recognizing Talent.

Recognition is a key element of mental health in the workplace. Feeling appreciated by colleagues is a basic human need. Whether it’s a simple thank you, a paid lunch, or a shoutout, every gesture is deeply appreciated. Being recognized boosts motivation, gives meaning to work, encourages creativity and innovation, and increases engagement. However, it shouldn’t be assumed that recognition is only the responsibility of management. Every talent, regardless of their role in the company, is encouraged to show appreciation. The value of the gesture is the same.

4. Promoting Rest Periods.

Overloaded schedules, overtime, skipping vacations—none of this helps an individual’s mental health. It’s understandable that some times of the year are more demanding, like tax season for accountants, but outside of those periods, talents need to rest. Working long hours without breaks doesn’t increase productivity—on the contrary. Over time, it gets worse. Fatigue sets in, and people start completing tasks half-heartedly or making errors they wouldn’t normally make. That’s why it’s crucial to encourage talents to take breaks to preserve their mental health and recharge.

5. Talk About It and Educate Your Talents.

Finally, the most important point—though it might seem trivial—is to talk about it. Mental health should no longer be a taboo topic within your organization. If it still is, educate your teams and gather the information needed to equip them properly. Many resources are available to help you implement initiatives in your organization and learn more about the subject. Don’t hesitate.

In 2020, 615M people worldwide were affected by common mental health disorders. Everyone needs to talk about it and promote good practices at work to help reduce this number and/or lessen its impacts. We care deeply about the mental health of our talents.