7 tools and techniques to support employee mental health

In recent years, the sentiment and concern surrounding employee mental health has risen to new levels of significance. As organisations reach for higher revenue and growth targets, employees inevitably feel the strain — especially those in frontline (or ‘deskless’) roles.

What do we know about the current state of employee mental health?

Although more businesses are implementing initiatives like Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and paid mental health days, the stigma around employee mental health prevails as more than one in two Australians who have a related condition hides it at work for fear of being judged or discriminated. This means there’s progress to be made by employers to destigmatise wellbeing in the workplace. 

In fact, frontline workers experience higher rates of burnout and stress than workers in other industries. This leads to greater problems, with research indicating that frontline workers are 61% more likely to suffer from depression, with 33% being at greater risk of anxiety. Despite being more susceptible to mental health issues, frontline workers are 30% less likely to seek out professional assistance. Like workers in other industries, frontline workers share a general aversion to EAPs and support programs, generally due to the perceived stigmas associated with them. This creates a toxic cycle. 

Breaking down the data gives us a greater insight into the way both employees and managers handle mental health programs:  

• 97% of Australian CEOs think they do enough to support mental health in the workplace – but only 66% of employees feel that way. 

• More than one in four Americans have quit a job in the last two years because of their mental health. 

• Employees experiencing burnout are over twice as likely to be actively seeking a different job 

• Absenteeism for employee mental health conditions costs Australian businesses $4.7 billion per annum – equivalent to 1.1 million days’ sick leave. 

When you compare the figures, the discrepancy between organisations that believe they’re doing enough for employee mental health and employees that believe their employers don’t do enough for the cause is concerning. Bridging this gap and breaking the stigma through effective mental health initiatives must happen sooner rather than later to stop this issue from proliferating. 

The benefits of actioning effective employee mental health initiatives include: 

• Reduced costs linked to absenteeism and high attrition rates 

• Higher engagement (which goes hand in hand with higher performance) 

• Lower stress levels and higher team morale 

• A stronger culture of trust that fosters psychological safety in the workplace 

Key tools and techniques to support employee mental health

Maintaining and improving workplace mental health is a complex issue but luckily, there are countless tools and techniques HR leaders can use to start to understand and address it. Here are five key strategies to get you started.

1. Offer flexibility and autonomy based on employee needs

It’s incorrect to assume that greater flexibility and autonomy can’t be offered to frontline workers. The nature of the work undertaken by frontline workers like those in the care industries, Hospitality or Retail means that they must be on-site, but this does not mean other forms of flexibility cannot be utilised. 

Time flexibility can mean different things to employees: the opportunity to choose which days are worked, which hours are worked, or increased leave time. All these options allow workers to better integrate work into the rest of their lives. 

Autonomy can be provided by empowering workers to choose the shifts that work best for them. Although it’s always a matter of balancing organisational needs with individual worker needs, software can help.  

For example, Humanforce’s Rostering & Scheduling solution offers shift offer and shift bidding features, available in the Humanforce Work App. That way workers can bid on the shifts that suit their personal circumstances, and managers can make shift offers to fill unexpected gaps in shifts without having to phone countless workers.

2. Have a mental health conversation during check-ins

Managers need to treat their 1:1 meetings with workers as a chance to have a mental health conversation. It doesn’t have to be formal or awkward; a simple “How are you doing?” is often enough to gauge the mood, sentiment, or feeling coming from your employee.  

The key to building robust support networks is consistency. Setting up a regular cadence of one-on-one check-ins is the key to gathering more data and sentiment — and being able to track it over time to see how your teams are doing. As a side note, Humanforce’s Employee Engagement solution allows managers to discover what matters most to their employees. They can customise survey forms, collect important feedback, schedule frequent check-ins, and harness advanced analytics to monitor and track happiness and wellbeing over the entire employee lifecycle. 

With regular check-ins, managers can build rapport with their employees over time to encourage open, honest communication. Through more personalised meetings, employees may feel more compelled to communicate more honestly and openly with their managers. The insights and sentiment recorded can then be turned into strategies for employees who may be struggling, or require extra assistance in certain areas. 

Of course, make sure to always follow up with them after each conversation to see how they’re doing and if they need more support. Remember, mental health issues can arise at any time. It’s important to stay on the pulse, allowing time for regular check-ins and conversations with your employees.

3. Consider the benefits on offer to your employees

Lengthy hours and stressful situations aren’t the only plights faced by frontline workers — they’re also burdened by typically low pay and high levels of job insecurity. This can be crushing for morale, and can result in declining mental health and eventual burnout amongst your employees. With costs rising across the board, frontline businesses need to consider what benefits they’re offering outside of extra remuneration. 

One way of doing so is by offering strategies, support, and platforms surrounding employee wellbeing. The stats show just how powerful wellbeing benefits can be: 

• 78% of employees who believe their employer cares about their health and wellbeing also say they are thriving 

• 1 in 3 employees said they would forgo a pay rise for additional health and wellbeing benefits for themselves and their families 

• Wellbeing benefits are perceived by executives as the people initiative that will deliver the second greatest ROI in the next two years (after reskilling) 

The Humanforce Benefits* solution allows you to deliver this to your workers through the Thrive mobile app. It’s the key to unlocking more engaged and resilient teams, providing workers with financial wellbeing tools and benefits. Through the Thrive app, your workers can access the following features: 

• Grow: Empower employees to reach goals faster through pre-pay automated transfers 

• Access: Allow employees to access up to 50% of their wage ahead of payday, allowing them to budget more effectively and cover emergency costs 

• Track: Provide employees with tools to create budgets, pick up extra shifts, and watch earnings grow in real time 

• Learn: Improve financial literacy by giving employees access to best practice financial education, individually tailored to them based on their reported financial wellbeing scores 

• Perks: Access ‘Thrive wallet’ to stretch pay further and save more through cashback offers for everyday spending and special purchases 

*Humanforce Benefits is currently only available to Australian-based customers at this time.

4. Promote a healthy culture around taking leave

Many employees tend to feel guilty when taking their entitled leave. On paper, it’s legal. But many employees feel a strong sense of duty and commitment to their teams and roles and see time off as a kind of cop-out, or an act of “letting the team down”.  

This is especially the case when it comes to sick leave and mental health & wellbeing leave. Unfortunately, many industries continue to stigmatise the usage of leave.  

To make a change, leaders should try to reframe the narrative in order to promote a healthy culture around taking leave. To view it from a different angle, imagine you have a detailed monthly workout plan at the gym. Regardless of your ultimate goal, there are always rest days planned out to allow your body to recover and recharge. Overusing your muscles can lead to injuries, which is why they need time off to repair and build back better and stronger. 

The same concept applies to mental health. Your mind needs time to rest and recharge. Without it, burnout is inevitable. However, employees may refuse to take time off for reasons like heavy workloads, nobody to cover them, or because they fear being criticised. As their leader, you should encourage employees to listen to themselves and address their wellbeing needs; by doing so, you start to acknowledge the importance of proper rest and recovery. After all, employees who maintain a healthy work-life balance are more likely to be happy and engaged at work. 

If you notice someone who hasn’t taken time off in a while, check in with them and remind them that their engagement and wellbeing are your top priorities.

5. Invest in mental health training

The first step towards tackling any issue is awareness. With regards to employee mental health, educating staff on the issue is the best way to increase awareness and understanding about how it affects both themselves and their peers. It also equips them with the right tools and knowledge to create a significant cultural shift in managing workplace mental health. 

Mental health training allows your team to identify coworkers in distress and intervene as early as possible. When employees look out for each other, it reduces the sense of social isolation in mentally distressed team members, while fostering psychological safety in the workplace. Most importantly, it normalises conversations about mental health and encourages employees to take action to support their team members.

Workplace mental health isn’t optional anymore, but rather imperative 

As the way we work evolves, so does the state of employee mental health. It’s now on leaders, managers, and HR teams to learn, adopt, and implement innovative strategies, tools, and resources to ensure the mental health and wellbeing of employees is kept front-of-mind.

About Humanforce

Humanforce is the all-in-one platform for frontline and flexible workforces, offering a truly employee centred, intelligent and compliant human capital management (HCM) suite – without compromise. Founded in 2002, Humanforce has a 2300+ customer base and over half a million users worldwide. Today, we have offices across Australia, New Zealand, the US, and the UK. 

Our vision is to make work easier and life better by focusing on the needs and fulfilment of frontline workers, and the efficiency and optimisation of businesses. 

To learn more about how Humanforce’s solution can help automate people processes in your business, please contact us.