A happy worker is a productive worker, as the saying goes. This is a good point of view to take when creating and implementing your employee relations strategy. Your staff are more than a simple asset in the quest for success. They are people with thoughts, feelings, and lives of their outside of work. So, it’s an essential task to be sure to encourage good mental health in the workplace.
Engage with Employees
It should go without saying that you cannot look at the mental health picture of your employees without talking to them. It may seem subtle at first glance, but it’s only by asking the potentially difficult questions that you may not like to hear the answers to that you can get a complete and accurate picture. Offer staff opportunities to give opinions and suggestions formally and informally, listen to their concerns and consider their ideas.
Offer More in Break Time
Break time is essential for workers. Not only does it give them a mental (and physical) time away from their workstation, it should allow them to do something different. If you actively discourage work talk in these periods, you may find that they return entirely refreshed, and quality of work improves overall.
Extra Health Benefits
You want to have your people to be as healthy as possible, and there are various ways to achieve this. There is the traditional route of providing as good a health plan as possible, and this should never be neglected. But if you offer them other such side perks as free or discounted health supplements, such as those listed at Rave Reviews, then you can give them this option free of charge.
Fitness Incentives
Fitness neatly ties into health, and fitness incentives are a popular perk these days, many employees would heavily balance this in their decision on which job to accept in the event of having competing offers. Perks such as free gym membership or cycle to work schemes are increasingly popular. Other excellent ideas, if your premises have enough space, includes hiring fitness instructors to offer lunchtime workout and wellness classes. Yoga or cardio classes are popular in many places, or you could offer group running or cycling clubs that anyone can join. It’s a crucial thought to stress that these are optional activities, and the impression should never be given that participation will carry any favor in the office.
Work/Life Balance Work-life balance is a common theme in recent years. There is value in being diligent and working hard. However, people have a range of demands on their time and attention. It can pay dividends for the morale of those workers if you can find a way of allowing people to work from home on certain occasions. It doesn’t have to be all of the time, and a week can be split between the home office and the real one. Another novel idea that has taken on recently is once in a while closing the office and taking everyone on a trip out, something like a nature trip can be really beneficial and shows you are different from other random workplaces.
