Looking after your team
Never before has the work environment played such a central role in workers’ mental health and wellbeing as today that, ironically, it has become virtual. There is no quick-fix solution that can solve problems overnight. Nevertheless, communication among colleagues and between workers and managers plays a role in creating a healthy work environment, be it in the office or virtual.
The World Health Organisation states unambiguously that work is good for mental wellbeing. However, negative work conditions can lead to serious mental health problems in individuals.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a worrying decline in workers’ - and people’s - mental wellbeing. The issue of mental health and how to deal with it is complex and multifaceted. It requires a coordinated response from mental health professionals, government policies and programmes and employers.
We do not pertain to offer an exhaustive analysis but can share some insight on how workplace communication and organisation can help reduce stress and anxiety, increasing workers’ mental wellbeing.
Naturally, anyone struggling with severe mental health issues is advised to seek the help of their physician or a mental health professional.
Workplace risk factors
Most people spend a considerable amount of time at their place of work, it is normal, thus, normal that their work can have a significant impact on their mental health: anxiety, burn-outs or depression. Most risk relates to how an individual interacts with the type of work they carry out and their organisation’s managerial environment. Does the work fit the workers’ skills and do they receive the right support and resources to carry it out?
Virtual work-space, real implications
Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, for many people remote working has become the norm. Whereas working from home can have its advantages, it can also accentuate mental health problems through a feeling of isolation and difficulty in separating home and work environments.
Dr. Ana Gonzalez Pinto, Chairwoman of the Spanish Psychiatric and Mental Health Foundation, explains that the human brain is characterised by “neural plasticity”. Faced with changing circumstances, the human brain will adapt and create a new normal. This process will be apprehended differently by different people. Some will have greater difficulty in adapting, increasing anxiety and the possibility of slipping into depression.
Spanish broadsheet El Mundo reports that over the past 12 months, 6.4% of the Spanish population went to a mental health professional. Forty-four percent of them for anxiety and 35.5% for depression. Of these cases, the significant majority were women.
Leadership and experience
Oracle conducted a series of studies on mental health in the workplace during 2020 that highlighted how being in a leadership role and work experience also affect mental health.
In looking at ways of using artificial intelligence to tackle mental health at work, they noticed through surveys of employees in 11 countries, that with remote working two categories seem more impacted: people in leadership positions and the younger generations.
A significant stress factor for many home workers used to the office environment is getting to grips with the technology required to connect from home. Once this hurdle is overcome, seasoned workers are more likely to concentrate on the benefits of working from home. Generation Z, while more technologically savvy, have greater difficulty in establishing barriers between work and home life, possibly through lack of experience and shorter careers.
People in leadership roles also reported greater stress levels in these surveys than their subordinates. Whereas they appreciate having more time to get their own work done - fewer interruptions - leading remote teams requires a different set of skills that they do not always feel they possess. In addition, people in leadership positions are more reluctant to talk about their difficulties because they feel it is perceived as a weakness or lack of capacity to lead others.
Lack of communication around one’s difficulties contributes largely to driving them down the rabbit hole. The Swiss health and safety at work agency’s, SUVA, first piece of advice when dealing with home-working during the pandemic is that if you feel oppressed or anxious, you should talk to someone about it.
Companies, organisations and managers should communicate clearly to their (home) workers that asking for help is fine and inform them of where and how support is available, whether within the organisation or through external resources. Many countries, including Belgium, require employers to sign up to external health and prevention services. This might be the right time to put them to good use.
Apply CPR to your team: Communication - Participation - Recognition
Among the mental health risk factors listed by the WHO, some are linked to communication in its broad sense. The WHO identifies:
poor communication in the workplace and management practices;
limited participation in decision-making and little control over one’s own area of work;
unclear tasks and organisation’s objectives.
Turning these three points around to their positive side, the WHO is actually indicating that using the basic building blocks of any good communication campaign can help manage workers’ stress and anxiety, reducing the risk of developing work-related mental health problems.
Communication
Managers should think about how to set up management practices that facilitate inter-office communication. Make sure everyone has the information they need, when they need it and in a clear and actionable format. It is important that everyone in the team understands the decision-making process within the organisation and can participate in it as appropriate. Managers should not micromanage and give each worker the authority and independence to manage their work.
Finally, to avoid workers developing a sense of being lost, isolated or irrelevant, managers should determine with them what their tasks are and how they fit in and contribute to the organisation’s overall strategy and objectives.
Participation
A healthy workplace, therefore, is one where both workers and managers actively contribute to the working environment. Focus being placed on developing the positive aspects of work and playing to individuals’ strengths.
Workers are empowered by being involved in decision-making. To develop a true feeling of participation, it is necessary for the organisation to look at how and when it involves its workers formally or structurally in the decision-making process. Creating a participative environment goes beyond a line-manager asking a staff member’s opinion from time-to-time. Sociocracy can turn linear structures into dynamic governance.
Recognition
The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) notes that everyone wants to be recognised and have a sense of belonging. It produced a list of ten tips and tools for respect and civility in the workplace. Northstar Meetings Group went even one step further. They published 20 ways to show staff appreciation during the pandemic recommending to set time aside every day to give praise.
The list seems over-simplified and can be dismissed as common sense. But, as managers or even co-workers, do we always apply all the points? For instance, do we always give others credit when they do a good job, recognising a worker’s contribution to the organisation’s objectives?
Looking at inter-office communication the CCOHS suggests that workers acknowledge each other with greetings. A simple “good morning” for instance. Another tip is to break the ice with a colleague that they don’t have much contact with by asking their opinion on the issue they are working on. Finally, simply being polite in conversation, by peppering it appropriately with “please” and “thank-you”.
Sounds wishy-washy? Perhaps. But your parents were right when you were growing up: a little politeness goes a long way in human relations.
These tips also need to be put into the current pandemic home-working context. It is all too easy when sending emails to colleagues, working with messaging and chat services, to leave out the niceties. Whereas concision in (digital) communication is a virtue, make sure messages don’t come across as brusk, or even rude. It might not be the message’s intent, but might well be how it is perceived. Whenever you assign tasks, also take your time and show a clear purpose by linking it to your organisation’s strategy.
Three tips to support mental wellbeing at work
Acknowledge your co-workers. Managers, take the time to say hello to everyone on your team daily and allow them to express themselves. Remotely, this could take the form of a quick email check-in, or making a phone call to discuss the workload. Communicate politely and give credit where it is due. Even in the virtual world, emails, texts, group chats and online meetings can be polite and courteous.
Encourage everyone to participate. Ensure that workers know how decisions are made in the organisation and create a space - team meeting, staff meeting or regular one-to-one’s - where they can genuinely participate in the decision making process.
Give workers a sense of purpose. The organisation and your team need a strategy and clear objectives. Ensure workers understand how their tasks - no matter how trivial they may seem at times - fit into the strategy and help the organisation meet its objectives. Do not let your colleagues or your team members feel that they are being swallowed into a machine like Charlie Chaplin in his timeless film “Modern Times”.
- written by Jacopo Moccia, jacopo[at]thedandeliongroup.eu
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