Emotional health at work: check out 9 tips to improve it
Emotional health at work, when present in a balanced way, can guide the company towards success. After all, the improvement it promotes in employees’ self-esteem reinforces engagement and facilitates the development of a healthy organizational culture.
On the other hand, when it is deficient, it can encourage absenteeism, layoffs and even the loss of talent from the company. The rule is quite simple: an emotionally healthy team improves and produces more and better, while in the absence of emotional health, everything becomes more difficult.
Continue reading and check out 9 tips to improve emotional health at work.
1. Implement an organizational culture
A company’s organizational culture is guided by its beliefs, values and standards and, for this reason, it has an important function: to maintain the climate within the organization. By bringing together a system of shared values, organizational culture guides the actions of everyone, from the most basic employee to senior management.
In practice, it shows what is important to the company and allows everyone to speak the same language. When this happens, it becomes easier to awaken a sense of belonging among employees, as well as consequent team engagement and better conscious use of the benefits offered.
2. Adopt workplace gymnastics
Many professional activities tend to become routine, with employees adopting a sitting position for almost the entire workday — which can be boring and tiring. Other times, work is performed standing up, but this requires employees to remain in this position for a long time.
In these cases, ergonomic solutions are complemented with workplace gymnastics, which involves stretching and compensatory movements. In addition to the physical aspect, practicing this exercise provides a moment of relaxation capable of relieving fatigue and stress, in addition to often improving integration and even making people laugh.
3. Encourage physical activity
Physical activity is essential for the good health of any person at any age. Its effect on the work environment is very significant: it reduces absenteeism and the occurrence of accidents at work , among others.
You can encourage the practice through internal guidance and lectures, but above all, by facilitating the process of adopting the habit . Therefore, whenever possible, make your work schedule flexible to allow for participation and make agreements and partnerships with clubs or gyms in the city.
4. Implement quick massage in the company
Quick massage is a great way to reduce stress among employees and improve their well-being at work. Many of the imbalances caused to a worker’s mental health result from the stress they are subjected to while performing their duties.
Sometimes the nature of the work does not allow for much alternative (or, alternatively, to operate in a less stressful way) and, therefore, tension ends up being habitual. Reducing this amount and relieving the accumulated stress contributes significantly to the emotional health of the team: quick massage achieves this objective.
5. Value feedback
Promoting frequent assessments and giving employees a voice is an essential initiative for valuing the individual and boosting their self-esteem. Taking care of your team and taking seriously the concerns that come to you are important contributions to the mental health of your staff.
In this sense, pay close attention to providing feedback on questions and requests that are presented and do not leave any observations unanswered. In particular, pay attention to good ideas and, whenever possible, make use of them and express their importance. Successful internal experiences should be made public.
6. Promote lectures with guidelines
Hold lectures with guidance on emotional health and the importance of introducing certain habits and practices, just as you do with physical health. Offer explanations and practical ways, as well as facilities, so that the suggestions you give can find possibilities in the workplace.
Instruct the speakers to relate the organizational culture to the different initiatives that the company continues to implement to protect the emotional health of its employees. Let them know that they are important to the organization and the reason for all the movement made in favor of physical and emotional health.
7. Allow flexible working hours
For many people, it is very difficult to adapt their personal schedule to new activities, which can make it impossible to adopt physical activities, for example. Therefore, whenever possible, consider offering flexible working hours to overcome this obstacle.
Initiatives of this nature go far beyond the specific expected result. They usually translate into greater engagement, as if the employee recognized that the company is on their side, seeking to improve their well-being and their lives.
8. Research internally to find out the results
After starting each measure to improve employees’ mental health , consider periodically evaluating the results achieved. Find indicators that are most appropriate for the organization’s reality and use them as a reference for this purpose.
Conduct satisfaction surveys with objective questions that allow you to tabulate the responses and later assess whether changes are being detected. Ask one or two questions that require each employee to express their feelings, so that each one can express themselves in their own way regarding the company’s initiatives.
9. Be patient
Rest assured that measures of this nature will bear fruit and that you will be making a good effort to improve the emotional health of your team. However, take your time. Go at the pace that the company allows, gradually adopting new actions.
Use your creativity and that of your team. Evaluate with your employees, show them the paths the organization wants to follow and ask for suggestions: this is already a great initiative towards building balanced mental health.
As you can see, emotional health at work, although it has different strengths to weaken it, can also be built with administrative and operational measures capable of dealing with the most difficult occupational aspects.
The company can do a lot for the organizational climate and help build physically and emotionally healthier people.
