4 Strategies for Leaders to Improve Mental Health at Work

Your mental health plays a significant role in the workplace. Poor mental health (including stress) can negatively impact job performance and engagement. Furthermore, employees grappling with mental health challenges contribute to elevated healthcare costs for the organization, and as a Harvard Business Review article highlighted, compromised mental well-being is also associated with a heightened turnover rate.

With World Mental Health Day approaching, it’s an ideal time to acknowledge and address the detrimental effects of mental health challenges in the workplace. Organizational leaders must foster a culture that recognizes the mental health struggles of their team members and seeks to mitigate them.

Wondering where to begin? Executive coaching emerges as a vital tool in implementing mental health initiatives. Here are four highly endorsed strategies from Arootah experts to guide you on this journey.

Strategy 1: Cultivate an Open Dialogue About Mental Health

The same Harvard Business Review article linked above noted that there is now a high prevalence of mental health challenges across all organizational levels, with more than three-fourths of survey respondents reporting at least one symptom of poor mental health. However, these team members are talking about their mental health at work, and that’s a good thing. Cultivating an open dialogue leads to reduced stigma, which can then lead to more widespread treatment.

As such, and as a leader on your team, take the first steps to begin these conversations in your organization. Conduct regular mental health check-ins. Implement a mental health awareness program. Company-wide initiatives like Mental Health Mondays or employee-led mental health advocacy groups can further encourage open discussions. To ensure all your leadership is on the same page, offer training for managers on mental health literacy and communication.

Even simple conversations can help. One-on-one and team conversations build trust and safety to discuss needs and support, including what increases efficiency and productivity for a team member, what lowers stress, and what creates an environment where they can thrive at work.

Strategy 2: Foster Mindfulness Practices

Studies have shown that mindfulness practices — including meditation, mindfulness walks, etc., for even short periods — have been proven to increase resiliency, decrease anxiety and depression, and improve memory and learning.

Therefore, integrating mindfulness into your team’s culture is a worthwhile consideration. Promote mindfulness at the beginning of meetings or offer your employees access to mindfulness and meditation apps. These subtle shifts can reduce stress and enhance your employees’ overall well-being.

Strategy 3: Provide Mental Health Education and Coaching

Without the proper data, you wouldn’t make any business decision, so why would you attempt to improve employee mental health without all the valuable information? Mental health education and coaching can help you and all your teams (especially leadership) better understand their needs and how to fulfill them.

Consider investing in one-on-one health coaching as part of your employees’ healthcare benefits and invest in executive coaching for your leaders to help them better their own and their teams’ mental health.

Strategy 4: Integrate Coaching to Foster Mental Health Leadership

Finally, it’s essential to weave coaching into the fabric of your leadership teams’ daily activities, ensuring that every key player becomes an advocate for mental health within the organization. Executive coaching is a powerful resource that helps leaders develop the necessary competencies to nurture their teams’ mental well-being.

As you search for the right executive coach to assist your team, look for someone who offers a dual focus on leadership development and mental health awareness. After selecting a coach who aligns well with your organization’s needs, encourage your leaders to commit to ongoing coaching sessions to solidify their role as mental health advocates.

The Bottom Line

Leadership extends beyond the pursuit of meeting targets and enhancing revenue; it encompasses the acknowledgment of the unseen challenges that accompany achievement. Picture an environment where mental well-being is a cornerstone of leadership tactics and where each dialogue has the potential to offer support.

Ready to improve your team’s mental health? Sign up for a complimentary introductory call to learn how we can support you.