Every working professional—junior staff, senior leadership, and mid-level managers alike—could benefit from preventive care practices to some degree. Moreover, these procedures can apply to their bodies and their minds alike. Today’s workforce acknowledges mental health concerns like no generation before, and its members seek support and emotional fulfillment. Employers can strengthen workplace wellness, camaraderie, and productivity by responding to their staff’s mental health needs with proper resources and solutions. Specifically, they can use corporate wellness software solutions like Givhero to create personalized goals, wellness challenges, improve workplace culture, and encourage mental and social wellness among employees.
Let’s explore mental health’s role in the workplace and how Givhero leverages preventive care to support it:
The Importance of Mental Wellness in the Workplace
Decades ago, virtually no one discussed how mental health affected workplaces. But as the separation between personal and professional lives has dissolved, global events like the Covid pandemic revealed the extent to which depression and anxiety affected the workforce. Additionally, researchers uncovered just how great an impact employees’ mental wellness has on their workplace.
For instance, significant evidence substantiates a strong relationship between workers’ reported mental wellness and their employers’ retention rates. Individuals who suffer from depression experience more unemployment and less productivity compared to those without such ailments. And in the rising generation of workers—Millennials and Gen Zers—a majority have reported leaving a job for mental health reasons.
Therefore, modern employers have many reasons to consider and support their staff’s mental wellness. While they can use several tools to deliver that support, employers must also recognize the significance of self-care for mental health. Employees must take steps outside work hours to boost their well-being, though organizations can help through wellness coaching and ample vacation time.
Mental Wellness Resources and Challenges
To create a successful mental health strategy, organizations must assess their staff’s mental health needs and design programming that responds to those needs. Fulfilling the first step may involve Health Risk Assessments (HRAs), anonymous questionnaires that allow employees to share their workplace concerns and wishes. This firsthand information allows leadership to build an action plan based on the identified needs.
This approach might involve Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), which offer personal and professional support to employees. This support generally includes short-term counseling, health insurance assistance, and professional medical referrals. Wellness challenges and initiatives often come into play as well.
Mental wellness challenges encourage participants to incorporate healthy activities—meditation, journaling, and others—into their daily routines. Employees can then use Givhero’s well-being platform to report their efforts doing the said activity, which employers can tie to charitable donations for organizations that support mental health (including NAMI, MHA, AFSP, and more). Doing so gives employees increased motivation to pursue their positive new habits.
Connection with Others
Wellness programs offer significant potential for companionship, which the Givhero app enhances thanks to its customizable features. Challenge participants can use the Hero Wall to share photos, chat, and encourage one another. They can also compete in friendly individual and team competitions.
Organizations can encourage this process by Creating Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). Built around a central interest, such as mental wellness, these groups are composed of employee volunteers. They can organize and facilitate well-being programming with the Givhero app. Plus, ERGs furnish a social infrastructure that encourages collective wellness and ensures everyone benefits from preventive care.
Supporting Others
What if employees could simultaneously boost their mental health and inspire others to do the same? Givhero affords such an outcome by tying wellness program participation to charitable giving. A fundamental part of Givhero’s value and mission, social wellness can help achieve workplace well-being and improve local communities.
Research reveals that charitable giving raises self-esteem, boosts mood, and even increases lifespan. All these outcomes, of course, benefit individuals’ mental health while they improve their community. Donating time and money also encourages a positive workplace atmosphere, mitigates unhealthy behaviors, and supports constructive ones. Organizations might even create social wellness campaigns for Mental Health Awareness Month every May to spread the word about its importance.
A Sample Mental Wellness Challenge
A mental health and wellness challenge might work like so:
- A company’s wellness ERG decides to put on a meditation and mindfulness challenge, wherein participants will meditate for 20 minutes a day throughout May in observance of Mental Health Awareness Month
- All participants use Givhero to track their daily results, share challenges they face, and encourage one another through in-app messaging on the Hero Wall
- To help guide and inspire people’s habits, the ERG shares meditation guides, articles, and other resources through the custom news feed
- For every 100 minutes meditated, their employer donates a set amount of money to the National Alliance on Mental Illness
- After a month, participants share results and celebrate their success!
Supporting Workforce Mental Health with Corporate Wellness Software
While mental health and long-term happiness require consistent effort and awareness, they pay dividends to individuals, organizations, and society. Employers and their staff can achieve such ends by leveraging Givhero, a corporate wellness software that ties wellness program participation to charitable giving. Givhero’s platform can transform an office’s culture, inspiring employees to pick up healthy habits and discover the contentment of positive mental health. Book a demo and learn more about our wellness offerings!
