Supporting Mental Health in the Workplace

The COVID-19 pandemic has ignited conversations everywhere, from the state of the global economy to the importance of wellness and mental health. These two issues happen to be quite related – economic downturns can lead to many companies restructuring or even going out of business, which burdens working professionals with high levels of stress. Looking back, even during the Asian Financial Crisis and the 2007-2008 global recession, stories of mental health struggles were aplenty.

However, regular times of uncertainty also present a challenge to our mental health. Suppose the COVID-19 pandemic and its upheaval of life as we knew it never happened. We’d still feel greatly pressured during our evaluation or annual review period. While some leaders are great at offering feedback before such major events, others are not; stress, anxiety and self-doubt would weigh heavy on our minds, without a clear sense of where we stand or how we’ve been performing. Would we make the cut for the next financial year, or would we be the unfortunate ones cut loose? That uncertainty, centred around a fear of becoming financially insecure, has only been amplified with an economic downturn and wide-scale disruption to contend with.

Mental health and many other issues surrounding the workplace have been mostly kept out of sight and left out of conversations in the past. This pandemic has brought everything into sharp focus. When the world embraces its new normal after this turbulence has passed, the importance of mental health in the business landscape must continue to be championed. That way, whether a new crisis emerges or not, companies will be able to take care of their employees’ mental health and cater to their well-being.

You’re not a good leader if you’re too busy to support your team’s mental well-being and understand the issues they’re facing. In your position, your number one priority is to carve out enough time in order to know your people inside-out. If you don’t, how are you going to help them reach their potential? For better or worse, their performance also reflects on you, and their job is not to make you look good. As a leader, your job is to motivate and engage them to do their best, making them look good.

A Safe and Comfortable Environment

Leaders who wish to improve mental health awareness in the workplace should take an indirect approach; your first step should not be to encourage people to come forward and share any possible mental health issues. Just as building a house starts with the foundation, you should first aim to create a safe and inclusive environment for people to disclose. People need to feel empowered and comfortable to share their private and vulnerable concerns, and it’s not something you should pressure them to do. When you actively push for others to discuss their mental wellness and don’t see any responses, you might assume that the entire campaign is not working.

Done this way, the campaign wouldn’t work, because the conditions aren’t right for people to start sharing their mental health concerns. When you create an inclusive space, people will naturally feel welcomed, valued, safe and respected. If people aren’t feeling this way in your environment, then they will be very hesitant to confide in you. How will you be supporting them when they want to speak up? If you can’t answer this, then mental health is probably not something that ranks high on your list of priorities, and your team will walk away with the same impression.

For that reason, giving commitments to mental health support without any concrete steps to back it up will only raise scepticism. If you don’t have a policy in place to support people with mental health difficulties, or well-being initiatives like employee assistance programmes or psychology services, what do you have to offer to the sceptics? When people see that your message and your actions are not aligned, they’ll question the extent of your commitment. In the end, they’ll keep quiet, under the impression that you don’t have a safe environment for disclosure, and nothing will have changed.

Companies that want to make a real impact on mental health support must strongly demonstrate their commitment (for example, with a detailed policy) and make sure they have the evidence to back it up. Your company may not be big enough to afford a range of internal resources, but there are still plenty of external volunteer groups and organisations where you can refer your employees to.

Once you’ve done your homework and explored viable resources for mental health assistance, you need to pay attention to what you’re doing, saying and prioritising as a leader. To create the right conditions for people to feel comfortable in disclosing their concerns, your messaging to them must be very clear. You must also highlight the initiatives that you’ve done and will do, and then show that you’re prioritising them. Lastly, you can’t expect to succeed if you don’t embark on all three actions as a leader – even two out of three won’t cut it. When you have established a safe and inclusive environment with your words, deeds and priorities, others will realise that you’re serious about your mental health advocacy and will be willing to disclose their issues.

Organisations should equip their staff with practical knowledge and information that they can use to stay resilient in tough times. At Bloomberg, we created resiliency training workshops for our staff and started using them from early 2020 in Hong Kong, before expanding it globally in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hong Kong was undergoing a really challenging period of disruption, and we recognised that our people there were exposed to the stress and tumult caused by the situation. Our resiliency training workshop was thus designed to help them cope with the lack of control in their lives. Large-scale unrest and school closures are certainly uncontrollable events, and our programme sought to address their mental impact as well as how to maintain resilience through adversity.

Staff will also benefit greatly from access to clear and thoughtful communication. When organisations remain silent on significant issues, they create a heightened level of anxiety for their employees. Left unanswered, important questions like ‘where does my organisation stand on this?’ or ‘how will they support me and what will they do?’ will greatly concern staff. It doesn’t matter if your communication lines are formal or informal ones, but your organisation needs to have them. Given the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant social distancing and lockdowns, communication beyond the four walls of your home has only grown in importance.

We implemented a multi-pronged approach to communication at Bloomberg – our people are updated with newsletters and can engage our top leaders through virtual town halls. On the individual level, staff who miss their desk buddies or simply want to see a few familiar faces can reconnect through virtual coffee catch-ups. There’s a real risk that some companies can fall into one-size-fits-all thinking, and in times of uncertainty, you can’t expect to reassure people with waves of mass emails; you’ve got to find more creative ways to communicate with people on a more personal level. If people are homeschooling their children, they’re going to be too busy to dial into a virtual coffee catch-up. Later in the day, when the kids are playing games or asleep, they might have time to catch up via email. Keep in mind who you’re liaising with and which communication channel you’re using.

From a position of authority, showing your human side can help others relate to you. Everyone may be affected during periods of turbulence and uncertainty, but every individual is experiencing it differently and coping in their own unique way. As a leader, displaying that little bit of vulnerability might get some to identify with you on a more personal level, instead of the standard leader-subordinate relationship. It’s good to make people feel that way sometimes, since it gets them to recognise that they’re not struggling alone and that it’s okay to be going through these troubles.

For instance, our regional head joined us on a group call wearing a gym shirt and sporting an unshaved face. That’s a world of difference from his usual attire – well-groomed and fully suited up with a smart necktie. Even through a virtual platform, you could feel a casual and relaxed vibe radiating from him, which helped release some tension from the other staff members. Even without a motivational speech, his actions helped to convey empathy and reassure everyone that day. That subtle shift can go a long way in maintaining your team’s resilience through adverse situations.

Supporting Needs and Boundaries

Everyone has different needs, and where one lonely person would like the extra attention, another may wish to be left alone to get more rest time from their hectic schedule. That’s why leaders should take the effort to learn and understand what their people need.

For instance, if my schedule is packed with meetings, I don’t need a virtual coffee catch-up – what I need is a half-hour breather to compose myself and use the bathroom or grab a cup of tea, and I’ve informed my manager accordingly. Still, there are individuals who would benefit from that bit of human-to-human connection, even if it’s through Zoom or a Skype call. Depending on the situation, you’ll have to connect and engage with your team members in an agile manner; once you understand their needs, you ought to reach out and meet them there (or respect their boundaries, if they prefer not to).

In the office, you’re likely surrounded by casual conversation, office banter and the occasional gossiping. With COVID-19 depriving us of even these, creating opportunities to catch up for reasons unrelated to work is also important. Before wide-scale remote working was instituted, we spent, on average, one-third of our day in the office. If you’re only scheduling strictly work-related online meetings, that’s a lot of socialisation that people will miss out on.

Personally, I’ve organised two meetings every week – one’s called ‘keeping each other grounded’, where we talk about literally anything but work. We’d complain about our neighbours’ antics, ask about each other’s well-being or simply trade tips for sourdough baking. There’s also a work call, where we’re focused on that one aspect. We’ve drawn quite a firm boundary between the two, and if anyone tries to talk about work in the time-out meeting, the rest of the group will shut them down in a light-hearted manner.

Every office will have its share of strictly work-only people who are loathe to pick up calls by their managers after work hours. If you know people like that and the situation isn’t urgent, respect their boundaries. But if you have people on your team whose social lives are completely at work, you could try to rope them in for a bit of much-needed contact and a respite from the lockdown.

Leaders’ Roles in Review

In these times of great change, leaders must step up to give their teams the support they deserve. Humility and willingness to ask for feedback are great actionable starts for leaders who want to ensure that they’re creating the right environment and conditions for their people.

During periods of uncertainty, it’s natural to not have all the answers – for example, with the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are learning on the go while scrambling to implement remote working capabilities. You don’t need to pretend that you have the answers, and it’s enough to admit that you don’t, while promising to help your team find out. When they see you making an effort, it indicates to them that you’re trying your best to build a safe and comfortable environment for discussing mental health concerns.

Once you have their feedback, it’s also your responsibility to respond to it. You can agree or disagree with their feedback and share your viewpoint, but you can’t sit on it indefinitely and do nothing. When your team sees inaction from your end, they’re likely to get the impression that you don’t take their input seriously. That’s a fertile environment for more doubt to surface within the team: when you don’t take any action on their feedback, there’s no incentive for them to share more with you. In the worst-case scenario, you’ll have lost their trust in your ability to lead. Not responding is the most harmful thing you can do in this situation, because even a well-explained disagreement shows that you’ve at least considered their point.

Even when you’ve created an environment conducive to mental health disclosure, people with reserved and shy personalities might still not volunteer information about their mental well-being. For instance, when you know your people well enough to tell when one of them is feeling slightly off, and you ask them how they’re doing, they’ll just say that they’re fine and leave it at that.

Some other managers might accept that answer and drop the subject. Leaders who are invested in their teams’ mental health should not simply stop there – take the extra step to foster the conversation and ask, “How okay are you?”. If you’ve demonstrated your commitment to mental health in the office, they’ll more than likely open up.

“What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candour, and more unashamed conversation.” –Glenn Close, American actress

Mental wellness and mental ill-health are two sides of the same coin, and depending on the circumstances, we can all shift or dip across the mental health continuum. With COVID-19 isolating many of us from our loved ones, either physically or socially, the need to support mental health in the virtual workplace has never been more apparent. In these times, leaders have a special duty to keep their teams performing at their best, and mental health support is an indispensable part of this duty. Finally, even after the pandemic ends, the work to strengthen mental health initiatives must continue to build upon the efforts made today.

1. Talk to Your People

If you don’t know the needs of your people, you won’t know when and how to reach out to them when they need support. Conversely, you might find yourself intruding on their personal space.

2. Research for Resources

Talk is cheap, and your people will only believe your commitment to mental health when they see steps being taken. Back your words up with mental wellness resources for your team and conduct research to find the most appropriate ones for your situation.

3. Loosen Up

In difficult times, your team will find it easier to relate to you when you display a more casual, vulnerable and human side of you. Sometimes skipping the tie and going for a simple T-shirt is enough to lighten the mood in your team.