Mental well-being is crucial to success in the workplace. According to a recent study, stress in the workplace is reaching epidemic levels, with 43 per cent of employees reporting that they are either extremely or very stressed at work.
A separate study found that 61 per cent of workers are looking for jobs with better work-life balance and fewer stressors. Mental well-being needs to become an essential part of how we measure employee performance and career progression because it leads to increased retention, productivity, and engagement. We know that happy employees are more productive and collaborative team members who are quicker to solve problems, more likely to come up with creative solutions, and able to recognise new opportunities for growth.
Why is Mental Well-being Important?
The number one priority for business leaders today is improving employee mental well-being. There are many benefits to doing so, but we’ll focus on three of the most important ones: Increased retention, productivity, and engagement.
Retention: Employees who feel engaged and have a positive mental outlook are much more likely to stay with their employers. The cost of replacing an employee is between 20 per cent to 50 per cent of their annual salary.
Productivity: If your employees are mentally overloaded, they will be less productive, distracted, lethargic, pessimistic, and more likely to make mistakes. With better mental well-being, your employees will able to focus on the things that matter, be more motivated to complete tasks effectively, and be able to recognize new opportunities for growth.
Engagement: Employees who are mentally satisfied are more likely to be engaged in their work. Engaged employees are loyal to their organization, work harder, receive less sick leave, and stay with their company longer than those who are not engaged.
Automation and Mental Well-Being
Automation is the process of replacing human effort with machine intelligence to improve efficiency, accuracy, and scalability. It is imperative for businesses to begin implementing automation methods in their workflow, customer service, sales, and HR management systems to improve mental well-being. Let’s take a look at some ways you can use automation to improve mental well-being at work. - Business Process Automation. The more efficiently you can streamline your business processes, the less stress employees will feel. This is especially true for administrative tasks that don’t require the same level of critical thinking as human-led tasks. - Chatbots to Simplify Customer Interactions. Chatbots can help employees and customers navigate a business more efficiently by providing quick answers to commonly asked questions, ordering and delivery statuses, and much more. - Chatbots to Simplify Sales Interactions. Chatbots can help sales teams strengthen relationships with customers by providing them with information they want or need, such as product details, shipping information, and estimated lead times. - Automation in HR Technology. There are many ways to use automation in HR technology to improve mental well-being. Some examples include AI-driven recruitment, automated onboarding, virtual assistants, and CRM software that automatically updates employees’ performance metrics.
HR Technology that Supports Mental Well-Being
AI-Driven Recruitment. With AI in recruitment, companies can achieve a high level of diversity in their hires while saving time from scouring through thousands of candidates. AI-driven software can also detect patterns in resumes that indicate whether or not an individual would be a good fit for the job and save recruiters from having to manually go through every resume. - Automated Onboarding. The onboarding process can be stressful for both employees and managers. With automated programs, you can standardize your onboarding process to help employees feel more prepared to complete their duties and feel less pressure to do so. - Virtual Assistants. Virtual assistants are AI-driven programs that can help with administrative tasks, such as booking travel and booking meetings, handling accounting and HR work, and scheduling content calendars.
AI Technology that Supports Mental Well-Being
Chatbots to Simplify Customer Interactions. Chatbots can help employees and customers navigate a business more efficiently by providing quick answers to commonly asked questions, ordering and delivery statuses, and much more. - Chatbots to Simplify Sales Interactions. Chatbots can help sales teams strengthen relationships with customers by providing them with information they want or need, such as product details, shipping information, and estimated lead times. - Automation in CRM Software. CRM software is about more than just keeping track of customer interactions. It’s a valuable tool for tracking employee progress and metrics too. Every action can be automated to help keep your team on track with projects, goals, and deadlines.
Conclusion
Mental well-being is crucial to success in the workplace. As technology advances, so does our ability to automate tasks and make life easier for employees. Companies can use automation to improve mental well-being by automating business processes, using AI in customer and sales interactions, and automating employee metrics in CRM software.