What Can Employers Do to Protect Their Employee’s Mental Health?
It is your responsibility as an employer to protect your employees physically and mentally. Whatever business you run around the world, be advised about one thing: a protected employee is a protected business.
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In this article by Pacific Prime, we provide some helpful tips on how to protect your employee’s mental health and discuss how employee benefits can help your employees during this time of hardship and uncertainty.
Tips On Protecting Your Employee’s Mental Health
As an employer, it’s important to remain approachable and available, recognize the effects of loneliness, encourage productivity and learning, and implement a robust and effective employee benefits program.
Having learned from the pandemic and the shifting expectations from employees, employers can do more to help employees stay mentally healthy, whatever their situation. This means going beyond normal means to offer a supportive workplace.
Here are some tips for employers to support employees in staying mentally healthy and connected to the workplace and each other:
1. Always Remain Approachable and Available
Take the time to approach employees directly and encourage open discussions about their concerns. Whether it’s adjusting to new ways of working or managing personal challenges, listening to their worries can help you identify opportunities to provide reassurance and support.
Establishing clear and accessible channels of communication is essential. Ensure that employees know how to reach out to you, managers, or HR professionals. Regular check-ins and open-door policies can create a sense of connection and belonging, even in a dispersed or hybrid workforce.
2. Recognize What Isolation and Loneliness Can Do to Your Employees
In the workplace, fostering meaningful connections with employees is more important than ever. Regular check-ins are now a crucial part of maintaining a supportive and engaged workforce.
These check-ins shouldn’t solely focus on work-related topics. Take the opportunity to connect on a personal level—ask about their weekend, their workload, or how they’ve been approaching their day-to-day professional duties.
Simple conversations like these can go a long way in alleviating feelings of loneliness, which, if unchecked, can lead to serious mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety.
Regular interactions also allow you to observe changes in an employee’s demeanor or behavior, which could indicate that they’re struggling. By staying in touch and fostering a sense of care, you can address issues early and provide the necessary support.
Think of your team as an extended family. Taking the time to nurture these connections not only enhances employee well-being but also builds a culture of trust and unity, ensuring that everyone feels valued and supported in this evolving work environment.
3. Encourage Learning and Productivity
As an employer, you should consider subscribing to courses that your employees will be most interested in. Give them flexibility and choice, which is why, with close communication, you’ll know exactly what to give them.
Everyone does better when they excel through discipline and regular training. Gold medals are not won without a strong mentality and diligent training regimes. This approach should be passed on to employees by providing them a chance to upskill and equip themselves for future opportunities.
This encourages proactive learning, enabling employees to branch into numerous career paths, showing that they are valued and supported by their employers, giving them a bigger reason to stay within the organization.
4. Implement a Robust Employee Benefits or Group Health Insurance Plan
A comprehensive employee benefits or group health insurance plan is a cornerstone of supporting employees’ mental and physical well-being. The pandemic has highlighted the critical need for organizations to go beyond basic support systems and prioritize holistic wellness programs.
Here’s why implementing a strong employee benefits or group plan is essential:
- Provide Access to Mental Health Support: Include coverage for mental health services, such as therapy sessions, counseling, and mental health hotlines. This ensures employees have access to professional help when needed, reducing the stigma of seeking support.
- Attract and Retain Top Talent: In today’s competitive job market, a robust benefits package is a key differentiator. Employees are more likely to stay loyal to a company that invests in their overall well-being.
- Improve Productivity and Engagement: Employees who feel supported and secure are more likely to perform at their best. Health benefits that address mental well-being can reduce absenteeism and presenteeism, fostering a more engaged workforce.
- Showcase Organizational Commitment: Providing an inclusive health insurance plan demonstrates that the company values its employees and is committed to their long-term health and success. This builds trust and loyalty, enhancing the workplace culture.
- Reduce Overall Costs: Addressing mental health proactively through comprehensive coverage can prevent more severe and costly health issues down the line. Early intervention reduces long-term medical expenses for both employees and employers.
5. Remind Employees to Check Out Their Business’ Employee Benefits Plan
Ensure that you communicate the entitlements that your employees have to their benefits, and be sure to encourage them to make the most out of it. This can be done using the right platform, such as the Flex Portal.
With that said, employers that have a well-thought-out wellness program built into their employee benefits plan will find that now is the best time to let employees utilize the benefits available.
Implementing Wellness Programs
In addition to an employee benefits plan, you may also incorporate a wellness program to enhance the benefits. A wellness program is one that’s intended to promote or improve the health or fitness of employees at work.
A wellness program may include flexible work options such as:
- Flexible Working Times: Employees who still need to head to work and wish to avoid the rush hour should have the option to choose to start later and finish after the rush hour, which can be beneficial.
- Healthy Eating Programs: These programs are quite popular with employees who have a goal of staying healthy. Many will choose to eat healthily to boost the body’s immune system and give the whole body strength.
More so, eating well can substantially improve one’s mental health. When eating food that is good and nutritious but also delicious, the thoughts of an employee can only grow happily and positively.
- On-site Health Services: For employers that have onsite medical staff, employees can seek the help they need directly. For those working from home, the advancement in telehealth allows individuals to connect directly to a medical professional without having to pass out the front door.
- Access Employee Assistance Program (EAP): Another type of benefit is free employee financial or legal support to help those struggling with their finances. Other types of EAPs also focus on mental health, and employees are likely to spiral into the trap of developing mental health problems.
It is proven that employers with mental health benefits as part of their overall employee benefits plan are at a significant advantage over those who do not offer such benefits. They are likely to have a lower incidence of work burnout, on-site ramifications, and work-related accidents and injuries.
The Importance of Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance
Employers with group health plans have the opportunity to provide more comprehensive coverage options, including mental health benefits for their employees.
As the prevalence of depression continues to rise, many health insurance plans struggle to adequately address mental health needs. While certain plans may cover medications and therapy, restrictions often force individuals to pay out of pocket, leading to untreated conditions.
Here are several key advantages of offering mental health coverage:
- Increased Employee Productivity: Supporting mental health leads to lower absenteeism and presenteeism, enabling employees to perform at their best.
- Enhanced Employee Retention: Comprehensive health benefits, including mental health support, foster loyalty and help to reduce turnover rates.
- Lower Overall Healthcare Costs: Early intervention for mental health issues can prevent the development of more severe and costly health conditions.
- Improved Workplace Morale: Employees who feel valued and supported contribute to a positive work environment, enhancing team dynamics.
- Regulatory Compliance: Providing mental health benefits ensures compliance with equality laws and legal requirements across various jurisdictions.
- Attraction of Top Talent: Competitive benefits, including mental health support, draw in highly qualified candidates looking for holistic wellness programs.
- Reduced Stigma Around Mental Health: Normalizing access to mental health care encourages employees to seek help without fear of stigma.
- Support for Comprehensive Wellness: Incorporating mental health care into benefits packages addresses the full spectrum of employee well-being, encompassing both physical and emotional health.
- Alignment with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Offering mental health benefits reflects a company’s commitment to ethical and socially responsible practices.
- Enhanced Company Reputation: Organizations that provide robust mental health benefits are viewed as progressive and compassionate, positively impacting their brand image.
Discover More About Employee Benefits and Group Insurance Solutions
Whether your business has an employee benefits plan in place or not, much has changed since the pandemic. Therefore, it is worth getting in contact with a broker like Pacific Prime to get the latest updates on news, trends, and the development of employee benefits and group health plans.
Pacific Prime is a specialist employee benefits solutions provider for businesses of all types, ranging from start-ups and SMEs to multinational organizations. Our team of experts can also help provide impartial advice across a range of health plans, including:
- Individual health insurance
- Family insurance
- Maternity health insurance
- Employee Benefits
- Group Health Insurance
For businesses that require more information on employee benefits plans and wellness options, head to our corporate page or contact us today.
Upon graduating from Mahidol University International College’s International Relations program, he spent his career in marketing and business development, working for an international subcontractor, a marketing research firm, an international news agency, a software development company, and a creative agency. His journey now continues at Pacific Prime, where he hopes to make an impact by simplifying insurance and writing a gargantuan amount of SEO articles to draw in billions of leads.
In his free time, Piyanat is an avid martial artist and musician, spending most of his time at boxing gyms in Nakhon Pathom and music studios with his friends in the music industry.
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