Day-to-Day Team Mental Health Tactics (Part 1)

 

I’m sure you’ve seen reports of workers paying more attention to their mental health. Maybe you have noticed it in the workplace. Maybe you have seen communications from your organization supporting mental health. Did seeing any of these make you wonder what you could do – or would be expected to do – as a team leader?

What can you do exactly? You are not a therapist. You do not have a degree in Psychology (probably). In fact, you may be a little concerned that you could be asked to get involved in people’s personal problems, something you may not have signed up for and may not be good at. Still, you want to make sure your team is productive and happy, so perhaps your next question is, "what are the basic things I need to do to effectively deal with my team's mental health?"

 That's a question we can work with. With that as your scope, techniques are available to add into your existing routines. Just making these initial adjustments will create a better work environment consistent with contemporary needs.

 Start your project with awareness and supportiveness

Your initial moves should indicate that the topic of mental health is “acceptable” to discuss and that the team will address it if necessary.

• At a team meeting early in the effort (or as soon as you can), explain to the team that mental health is important.

• Share an example of a work-related experience where you had to take time to improve your mental health.

• Have teammates share their own experiences of stressors in the workplace. If you keep the early discussion related to the workplace, it helps create a bond and allows you to make notes on what the team is experiencing currently. This allows you to monitor for these stressors in the future looking for ways to avoid or reduce their impacts.

• Provide information on resources available from your organization. This is how you avoid being some kind of expert in mental health. You become successful by making sure there is an awareness of a potential problem and refer team members to appropriate resources created by experts.

• Explain that addressing mental health is important to individual team members and the team. Even though you used work examples previously, make sure to specify that family and personal issues are included.

• If you know at this time what accommodations you specifically can make for mental health, provide examples. These may be brief time away or flexible weekly schedules.

Do quick research to prepare

Now that you know what to do in the early meeting on mental health, it should be pretty clear that you need to prepare beforehand. Some of these preparation steps you may already have done for other reasons (because you are a good leader, right?). Any of these might be suitable for your situation:

• Look over your organization’s communications about mental health for how it is prioritized. This will provide you with help to craft your own message and tone. You will not want to stray from the organizational message. Better to rephrase in your own words and refer the team to the exact message.

• Research your organization's benefits around mental health so that you can speak to them briefly. There should be a page and/or a message that you can leverage. You might want to have a summary bullet list and a link ready for use in meetings. Something as simple as a phone number to call for mental health assistance will make a huge difference.

• In the above communications, you may find that there is written guidance for individuals as to how to report larger problems to their manager, which may not be you. There may be self-care instructions that help individuals better make mental health part of their routine. Look for a quick link that you can use for guidance such as this.

• While you are researching the above, note the signs and symptoms of mental health problems, including burnout, so that you can identify and refer team members who may be suffering.

This blog has been full of ideas over the years to help make workers more productive and happier. The new twist, which is very important, is the specific focus on mental health. Most organizations now have targeted resources and are making it a point to address mental health issues.  

This is a timely response, because team members are more aware of the importance of mental health and are speaking out when there is a problem. They will value your efforts at creating a healthier work environment. They will value your efforts to help individuals who are suffering mental health issues.

Part 2 will cover how to make mental health part of your usual routines, so managing it does not affect your mental health!

Like this blog topic? Check out my hundreds of articles on this site. They are generally about people management. Never underestimate how this topic can propel your career!