Thriver: Mental health is the biggest challenge for employers during the pandemic

The pandemic saw people re-evaluating life and work. With restrictions being emplaced around the world, and remote work being adopted by companies, the world was turned upside down with no guarantee it will ever be flipped back.

As we now grapple with a new reality, workplaces have yet again changed, and we are now discussing hybrid working models and increased flexibility.

To get a better picture of what organizations and HR professionals are facing, workplace culture platform Thriver surveyed 179 company leaders, representing HR and people operations professionals.

The findings showed just how important mental health is and how difficult it is for organizations to address.

Mental health and work

Naturally, isolation and loneliness introduced a number of mental health challenges for a lot of people.

Thriver recorded the impact this shift had, and noted that 58% of HR professionals identify mental health as the number-one challenge faced by employees, while 57% identify it to be a major personal challenge.

As a result, the company believes that organizations need to double their efforts in mental health support.

However, making changes is not easy in the current climate.

HR professionals have struggled to organize events because of a lack of employee engagement, with 55% of respondents citing this challenge.

Mental health concerns came in third as an obstacle to creating real-life get-togethers that can improve social and team dynamics, as well as mood.

Not only that, but HR professionals have encountered personal strain as 67% of those surveyed indicated that they found the last two years personally challenging. Many cited their mental health and burnout as the reasons for this.

How to better mental wellbeing

Maintaining the health of employees is undoubtedly a concern for businesses. In order to do this, there is a number of areas that they can focus on.

Firstly, having a finger on the pulse of employee feeling is key.

Whether employees feel overworked or have a personal issue, opening a dialogue is important. This can be done by managers with the help of surveys provided by engagement tools like CultureAmp or People Insight.

Once there is an understanding of employee sentiment, HR can figure out the type of action needs to be taken. If new incentives are needed, tools like Benefex or Perkbox can help.

Additionally, balancing work and life is difficult when working from home so companies and employees can benefit from asynchronous working. On top of that, creating boundaries can be useful.

Thriver suggests key areas to work on going forward. This includes creating opportunities for employees to connect with each other, whether in person or remotely. As well as helping employees define the work-life boundary.

Employers can also increase personal and professional support from management, offer more opportunities for professional development, and increase mental health support

Of course, implementing these without increasing the workload on HR will be difficult. Nonetheless, it is clear that HR teams and employees need more support from organizations and particularly the C-suite.