What is mental health? 4 effective ways to take care of your employees' mental health

What is mental health?

What is Mental Health? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own potential, is able to cope with normal stresses and routine of life, working productively, efficiently, and contributing to the community”.

WHO emphasizes mental health, the absence of a mental disorder or disability. Mental health deals with an individual's cognitive, behavioral, and emotional health. There are many factors that affect a person's mental health, including:

Biological factors, such as genes or brain chemistry.

Life experiences, such as trauma or abuse.

Family history of mental health problems.

Mental Health benefits for employees

Throughout human life, if we encounter mental health problems, negative thoughts and moods, our behavior will be influenced, so mental health care plays a special role. especially important for businesses. Human resources is one of the core factors, focusing on taking good care of Mental health for employees will bring a number of benefits such as:

Attracting and retaining talents in the company, making them want to stick around for a long time and contribute in an ideal and happy working environment.

Increase engagement between employees and between employees and businesses through mental health care.

Reducing the situation of employees having to work in unsafe health conditions, thereby improving work quality and performance.

Particularly for each employee, when they have a positive Mental Health state, they will realize their full potential, be always ready to face the stresses of life, work more efficiently, contribute more effectively and more effectively. meaning for the company or business.

Signs of negative Mental Health recognition by employees

Based on the WHO definition of Mental Health, you can identify a staff's negative Mental Health status through the following signs:

Always in a state of fatigue, no working energy or low energy.

The activities of eating and sleeping are unstable, too much or too little.

Constantly having a negative attitude to everything, a state of despair and helplessness.

Constant stress, anger, anxiety, fear.

Avoiding people and routine activities, always refusing to participate in common activities.

Yelling at, fighting, and even fighting with co-workers.

Unable to get rid of the persistent thoughts and memories in the head.

Think about hurting themselves or those around them.

Dissatisfied, uncooperative attitude.

Smoking, drinking a lot, even using drugs.

How to effectively take care of mental health for employees

After thoroughly understanding the concept of Mental Health as well as its important role, businesses and companies need to always pay attention to this issue for personnel. Especially in the post-pandemic period, managers and leaders have the responsibility to help and support employees to release negativity, stimulate creativity and work motivation.

According to the Association for Human Resource Management (2020) stated: “Many employers are focusing on improving the mental health of their employees so that they can increase work productivity and increase employee retention and retention rates. reduce health care costs”.

Here are some ways to promote effective Mental Health care for employees that businesses need to pay attention to and put into practice:

Survey the situation of employees to make appropriate decisions

Many companies have surveyed employees about what causes them stress in the workplace, their level of engagement, their concerns about productivity, company culture, etc. employee's current status and expectations.

Short survey forms for employees asking about their satisfaction at work, issues around income, life, what makes employees fall under pressure will be the criteria for employee evaluation. best and thereby can improve Mental Health. After completion of the evaluation from the survey done. You will know the key stressors that need to be prioritized to be addressed.

The survey of the personnel situation should take place monthly, quarterly, etc. to promptly fix the problem. Many companies, when there is a mass layoff of employees, conduct a survey, everything seems to be more difficult to control.

Depending on the situation, businesses can apply a solution such as: supplementing the budget to support employees, implementing some reasonable internal communication activities, or suspending some unnecessary projects. It is necessary to avoid overcrowding and put great pressure on employees… The treatment plan needs to be applied quickly, at the right time, for the purpose to bring the highest efficiency.

Communication and training on mental health

One of the most effective ways to take care of employees' mental health and well-being is to make them fully aware of them. Problems often have to be solved from the root, each employee himself needs to know how to avoid the factors that cause mental health instability, and at the same time be fully equipped with knowledge to recognize, adjust and Heal as soon as problems arise.

There are many ways for businesses to train or communicate about Mental Health, for example.

Send internal emails with content about mental health so that leaders can timely grasp the situation.

Invite experts, organize mental health training sessions, help employees know what Mental Health is as well as ways to get the best mental health. Also get "work life balance".

Create videos to share knowledge, mental health stories to help bring positive energy to employees.

Choose influential people in the staff to spread the message of Mental Health, create motivation.

Deploying related articles on Owned media channels to help businesses communicate Mental Health effectively.

Businesses can apply one or more of the above methods. The results of the above measures help connect businesses with employees, understand the psychological state of employees to adjust and build an ideal working environment.

Flexibility in policies and regulations

What is Mental Health? This is a psychological state of people to reduce stress and pressure for employees, management needs to be as generous and flexible as possible in updating policies and regulations in the company. Especially in the increasingly competitive working environment, people have more and more problems to deal with.

Suggested activities

Depending on the specific situation, each business can do the following things:

Review regulations on flexible working hours of employees, paid and unexcused leave each year. Especially with many professions that require creativity, the time issue should be relaxed.

Consider re-evaluating the performance criteria so that they are appropriate, not too strict, to create conditions for employees to learn. Pressure is good for work results, but just enough pressure is effective, and if the pressure exceeds the threshold, it will bring many consequences.

Highlight employees' contributions and praise them to make them feel happier and more enthusiastic at work. Leadership recognition is a great source of motivation for employees to try and stick with them for a long time.

Add worthy rewards, which help employees make more efforts to contribute.

Consider considering salary increase, commensurate with capacity so that employees can work and strive for peace of mind.

Open promotion opportunities for each employee with a specific and scientific roadmap. Employees can identify the goals they need to work towards and achieve in each time period.

Thus, with a more flexible implementation of cleverly regulated policies, businesses have also contributed to enhancing Mental Health for employees.