Together for Mental Health

With a new month upon us, we find so much value in directing our attention to new ways we can intentionally celebrate, promote, or support employees within our workplaces. May brings an awareness of mental health, and we are eager to share what this can mean for your team as you pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Why Should the Workplace Care about Mental Health?

While it may be easy to dismiss matters of mental health as too personal for the workplace, the reality is that mental health cannot be compartmentalized in that way. Everyone has mental health, and it carries effects that work their way into all sectors of life–personal, work, social, etc. Mental health is the condition of your psychological and emotional well-being. MentalHealth.gov includes social well-being in the definition as well. 

You will also find mental health is a present factor in workplace behavior, as it affects stress levels, how we respond to others, how we make decisions, etc. As leaders intentional in DEI work, it’s crucial to be aware of how mental health affects your staff, specifically in the ways it affects those in minority groups on your team. It manifests in multiple facets and stems from a broad range of cultural experiences and dynamics–often including trauma and deep pain. So, the first step is in acknowledging the importance of addressing this topic within your teams.   

3 Steps to Lead Your Team with Mental Health in Mind

Let’s get practical with what it looks like to address mental health in the workplace. Here are a few steps to lead you in the right direction as we focus our attention on the importance of mental health:

• Become familiar with mental health terms.
  Mental Health America offers an extensive Mental Health Glossary to help you gain context for important terminology. It will also allow your staff to have a shared and unified understanding, as terms can be thrown around a lot without a firm grasp of what they mean.

• Assess and applaud the ways you see positive mental health on your team.  
  MentalHealth.gov offers four key ways you can detect positive mental health on your teams. 

  • The realization of potential: Do you find employees who are motivated and understanding of their own strengths?

  • The ability to cope with stress: Are your employees able to deal positively with pressures, changes, or other various stressors?

  • Working productively: Is there a productive rhythm in your processes and systems? Do you find practical productivity the norm?

  • Interest in making community impact: Is your team interested in reaching the community and providing impact apart from personal or team gain?

• Proactively provide support for mental health.
  As leaders, we know the benefits of proactively planning for a specific outcome versus frantically responding when we are faced with it unexpectedly. It’s true in matters of mental health as well. Taking time to understand the causes and effects will allow you to put systems and programs in place that continuously promote health.

So, if you’re looking for practical ways to address mental health, consider the following:

• Talk about it!
  No need to make mental health a taboo topic. We all deal with it, and there is healing and freedom in finding a workplace open to discussion. Tell your team you desire to be a place of positive mental health. Express your committed work toward better understanding your team’s health. 

• Cultivate ERGs (Employee Resource Groups).
  These groups provide spaces for employees to belong, to be heard, to be honest, and to build community within your staff. Catalyst defines ERGs as “voluntary, employee-led groups that foster a diverse, inclusive workplace aligned with organizational mission, values, goals, business practices, and objectives.”

You may begin to see some overlap in these awareness months. In some way, shape, or form, they each point to the need for intentional DEI on your team. We consider mental health to be just one way of intentionally promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. But how beautiful to find these topics overlapping in ways that always lead to a healthier understanding of each other and a desire to move forward in unity.