The wellbeing of your employees is a necessary consideration in today’s working world. Employees struggling with their mental health can have a negative impact on your business, resulting in high absenteeism, high turnover and low productivity.
However, mental health is a sensitive topic for some staff. Therefore, while it’s important you support your employees, you don’t want to be asking intrusive questions that could make them feel worse. Here’s how you can monitor your employees’ wellbeing without overstepping the mark.
Recognise the signs
Poor wellbeing can lead to changes in your employees and their behaviour, so it’s important, as an employer, that you know the signs. Look out for changes in normal behaviour, for example, has your employee become withdrawn or irritable? Have they changed their appearance? Even absenteeism or a lack of commitment can signal poor wellbeing.
By identifying these signs early, you are in a better position to take action. You can then work with your employee to define the underlying causes of their stress and help them to deal with their problems, minimising further risk to their health.
Positive work culture
Creating a positive work culture is a great way to monitor the wellbeing of your staff as well as promote communication and healthy relationships with employees. A positive work culture allows staff to be aware of their individual contribution and engaged with the success of the company.
According to Mind, when employees feel valued and supported, they tend to have higher wellbeing levels and be more committed to their organisation’s goals. And there are many ways you can develop a positive work culture, such as having a clearly communicated business purpose, effective open communication between all levels of the organisation and ensuring any conflict issues are dealt with appropriately and confidentially.
Assess your workplace policies
As an employer, you have a duty of care to look after your employees’ health – including mental health. Recognising and taking positive action to support your employees’ mental health can make a real difference to their wellbeing.
Firstly, you want to make sure all staff at all levels are aware of mental health, understand what factors affect it and know how to discuss issues appropriately. You also want to ensure your policies support wellbeing. Policies should set out your organisation’s approach to promoting wellbeing, tackling work-related mental health issues and supporting staff experiencing mental health problems.
Introduce workplace wellbeing solutions
With the CIPD calling for greater investment in health and wellbeing by businesses, wellbeing solutions are becoming more popular in the workplace. Investing in the right technology and wellbeing solutions for your organisation will enable you to monitor wellbeing and notice any warning signs that your staff are suffering. However, it’s important that your wellbeing solutions is not only proactive, but personalised so that there is a high participation amongst staff.
For example, the Employee Wellbeing Solutions from LifeWorks provides your business with a total wellbeing strategy that allows your employees to feel supported and guided, as well as recognised and rewarded.