Create a Mental Health Friendly Workplace

The ongo­ing COVID pan­dem­ic has affect­ed us all in one way or anoth­er. These times have brought many chal­lenges, which can sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact all aspects of your life, includ­ing your job.

Deal­ing with extra stres­sors while still hav­ing to go to work, can take a toll on the men­tal health of employ­ees. Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) Behav­ioral Health Coor­di­na­tor Nik­ki Shields said that rec­og­niz­ing and address­ing men­tal health in the work­place is crucial.

“Men­tal health con­cerns of employ­ees can lead to burn-out and affect their indi­vid­ual abil­i­ty to be suc­cess­ful in and out of the work­place,” she shared. ​“In addi­tion, poor men­tal health is linked to over­all health and can lead to car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, high blood pres­sure, and others.”

For employ­ers, it’s impor­tant to sup­port the men­tal well-being of their employ­ees. Shields offer these tips for employers.

• Pro­vide train­ing and edu­ca­tion to lead­ers so they can rec­og­nize the warn­ing signs of men­tal health prob­lems and pro­mote a cul­ture of support.
• Pro­vide flex­i­ble work sched­ules and remote work options to help employ­ees bal­ance the needs of work and home.
• Offer fit­ness pro­grams and oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve employ­ees’ phys­i­cal health. This can include exer­cise plans and sup­port, as well as nutri­tion­al edu­ca­tion. Good phys­i­cal health helps in the pre­ven­tion and man­age­ment of men­tal health symptoms.
• Offer stress man­age­ment train­ing to employ­ees to help cul­ti­vate skills for man­ag­ing work-relat­ed stressors.
• Offer employ­ee assis­tance ben­e­fits that include coun­sel­ing or psy­cho­log­i­cal ser­vices for employees.
• Pro­vide suf­fi­cient sick leave, flex­i­ble vaca­tion time, and unpaid time options to allow employ­ees the time to seek treat­ment or have time for recovery.
• Allow for a flex­i­ble break sched­ule and back­up cov­er­age so that employ­ees can take breaks through­out the day when they need them to bet­ter man­age stress and men­tal health needs.
• Be sure your health plan pro­vides for out­pa­tient and inpa­tient men­tal health treat­ment for employ­ees and cov­ers fre­quent­ly used and effec­tive psy­chi­atric med­ica­tions so that these ser­vices are read­i­ly avail­able to employees.

For infor­ma­tion on Behav­ioral Health ser­vices offered at Quin­cy Med­ical Group, call 217−222−6550, ext. 3418, or vis­it quin​cymed​group​.com.

Sources: https://​www​.girl​boss​.com/​r​e​a​d​/​c​o​m​p​a​n​i​e​s​-​m​e​n​t​a​l​-​h​e​a​l​t​h​-​b​e​n​efits.