What steps do organizations need to take to avoid mental health problems for employees, especially during Covid-19 times?
In these unprecedented times, everything in the world has gone for a toss. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed people, industries, and businesses to their limits, and has turned their lives upside down. Today, employees are exhausting themselves both physically and mentally by working extended hours, cooking meals in between, and taking care of their family.
In such a scenario, organizations must step up and find ways to encourage and support their employees apart from regular engagement activities, to ensure that their employees are not going through a difficult mental phase. Here are some measures that an organization can take to avoid mental health problems, especially during COVID-19 times:
1. Understanding fears and acknowledging them: With the continuation of the un-lockdown phase, businesses across the country are starting to open up, and so are the offices. Until a few weeks back, most of the workspaces were working remotely in a work from home environment, but the un-lockdown phase has enabled the organizations to ask for their employees to join the offices. In a situation such as this when over 50,000 COVID-19 cases are still recorded in India, the organizations must take measures to understand the psychique of their employees and be able to provide for them accordingly. The organization must take steps to sanitize the premises at least twice a day, check the temperature during entry and in the middle of the day, encourage employees to consume vitamins and minerals every day to boost immunity, and communicate with them about their fears, and reluctances, to be able to be of support for their employees.
2. Offer Work Environment Flexibility (wherever required): Even though the world is opening up, many people are still not comfortable in stepping out of their houses due to the repercussions of Coronavirus. Hence, the possibility is many employees who live nearby the office space may be okay about returning to the office, but chances are that many employees who live far away from the work location may be hesitant to travel via public transport to reach the office or travel at all, and would prefer to work from home.
Organizations must take steps to create a more comprehensive and flexible work environment that enables the growth of the employees as well as the organization.
3. Acknowledge their employees' financial needs: The uncertainty caused due to the explosion of Covid-19 in the country has left many individuals jobless. Many organizations have laid off their employees to cut costs and keep the company running. So, businesses must acknowledge the ‘financial aspect’ of the job, and ensure their employees about job security and convey about the financial situation of the company. Acknowledging the employees' trepidation will take off a lot of stress and turn their anxiety into motivation.
4. Build Repo with your employees: Organizations must take measures to ensure that their employees are on the same side as they are, and to do so, the human resource executives and higher management should interact with the employees. By doing so, the employees will feel more connected to the company and less fearful of their fate at the organization.
5. Measures to enrich employee’s well-being: Whether it is work from home or in-office environment, organizations must make available online sessions such as Yoga, Aerobic, Cardio, etc. for their employees to help improve their mental as well as physical well-being. Regularly exercising will not only uplift the employees’ mood or take away the stress but will also boost their immunity while enhancing their overall well-being.
An organization is successful when it is able to take with it all its employees, its offerings, and its work processes and ethics. Thus, if even one of the elements is missing, the company may end up in losing its clients, and it will become even more challenging to stay afloat in these testing times.
So, to ensure the proper functioning of the business, the organizations must create a sustainable and healthy environment for their employees and take measures to prevent any mental health problems their employees may face.
