- Nearly half of all Americans report that their mental health has been negatively affected by fears and concerns over COVID-19, a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll reported.
- Harvard Medical School psychologist Susan David said that it’s important to make employees feel supported emotionally so that they can do their best at work, whether remote or not.
- Insurance company Prudential created COVID-19-specific resources where employees can access mindfulness webinars, life coaching, and virtual counseling.
- PR firm The Reis Group has their employees take off work every other Friday and organizes virtual coffee chats for small groups to check in with each other more personally.
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A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll reported that nearly half of all Americans report that their mental health has been negatively affected by fears and concerns over COVID-19. As states open up and more employees return to work or come back to their workplaces from conducting business at home, experts said it’s more important than ever for business owners to pay attention to workers’ mental health.
“What we are seeing here is that there is a huge amount of burnout, and that there’s the reality that there’s been a collective trauma,” Susan David, Harvard Medical School psychologist and author of “Emotional Agility,” told Business Insider. David said that she believes that mental health, which some organizations relegate to a bullet point on their benefits page, will continue to be centered in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting emotional wellness issues.
Susan David. Dana Patrick Photography
She pointed out that catering to these issues isn’t just good procedure, it’s good for profitability.
“When people feel that they are supported, that they are able to bring the best of themselves to the workplace, that they are seen as individuals, that their struggles are seen, that there’s not this pushing aside of difficult emotions … you treat your customers better, you are more likely to be connected,” she said. “[T]here’s an impact on revenue, on brand, on people’s discretionary effort in the workplace, and the like.”
Remembering that all stressful situations impact employees differently and empowering employees to help in developing tailored approaches to mental health is a key to success, said Denise Rousseau, professor of organizational behavior and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College.
Denise Rousseau. Denise Rousseau
“The strains COVID-19 has created differ for workers and make it harder for people to be flexible and creative in their work,” Rousseau said. “Acknowledging that stress levels are up is a good step forward, but so too is offering workers the opportunity to help shape their work demands and deliverables. I suggest a good way forward is to support workers and their managers to have thoughtful conversations on ways to adapt work demands around their personal lives. This will help solve immediate problems and support good working relationships going forward.”
Here’s how business owners across the US are helping employees deal with worries about the virus as they return to work.
Insurance and investment giant Prudential is ramping up training sessions and counseling services
Pam Corson, vice president of the Global Health Organization at Prudential Financial, oversees a program that’s expanded with COVID-19-specific offerings since the onset of the pandemic. Employees have access to resources that include behavioral health consultants who provide virtual and confidential counseling services, a 24/7 employee assistance program, mindfulness sessions, life coaching, and much more.
Pam Corson. Pam Corson
Corson’s team has recently added webinars and tip sheets around managing grief and multiple responsibilities during the pandemic to their offerings, as well as convened an Incident Oversight Team whose goal is to assess and respond to the critical needs of employees.
“We understand that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed many things and that the ways in which employees have responded to the pandemic vary widely, based on many factors including their living situations, family dynamics, and more,” Corson said. “We believe that promoting employee mental health during this time and always is the right thing to do for our employees.”
Education publishing specialist Wiley applies its strengths to employees’ mental health, leaning on its partners to create webinars
Wiley, a global developer of digital education, learning, assessment, and certification solutions, has mined its strengths to care for its employees’ mental health during the coronavirus pandemic.
In addition to offering twice-weekly virtual meditation sessions, creating open online recreation platforms for colleagues to gather for coffee or meal chats, and initiating a global wellness challenge, the company turned to its authors to host public and informational webinars for employees on topics such as resiliency in a crisis, how to help children cope with uncertainty, and helping students get the most out of their online learning experience.
Danielle McMahan, Wiley’s chief people officer, said that the company has seen avid participation from its 6,700 employees worldwide who have been working from home since early March.
Danielle McMahan. Danielle McMahan
“We know that colleagues are juggling work and home lives, taking care of themselves, their families, and their communities, and balancing the stresses inherent in this new mode of operation,” she shared. “Helping employees manage through stress and change is critical, and we’ve seen record participation in our author webinars and talks — our colleagues have already clocked 600,000 minutes of wellbeing and self-care activities.”
McMahan said that the company’s commitment to flexibility and clear communication are additional factors in maintaining a positive environment for employees amidst the uncertainty brought about by the pandemic.
“We have encouraged our leaders and managers to be high touch and work out flexible arrangements for colleagues contending with dependent care, and we haven’t required that they take PTO or sick time, which can often be a stress factor,” McMahan explained. “Plus, the social collaborative tools we built advocacy for pre-COVID-19 have enabled us to pivot quickly and stay connected around the world. I believe that our Wiley colleagues will give us the same flexibility we afford them, and together, we have proven that working from home is not a barrier.”
A PR firm shows its commitment to mental health with a #TakeCare campaign and Fridays off
Washington, DC-based PR firm The Reis Group focuses its book of business on healthcare, so it just makes sense that principal Sharon Reis would have a strong commitment to ensuring employee wellness in leading her 12-person agency.
For example, her team already worked from home one day a week, so she’d set in place the structure and procedures for flexible teleworking long before the pandemic forced the company’s hand on the matter on March 13, which Reis said definitely paid off.
Sharon Reis. Sharon Reis
In the face of the pandemic, Reis’ client base inspired her to look for additional ways to foster her employees’ wellness.
“As a healthcare agency, we represent progressive clients who promote integrative medicine and self-care,” Reis told Business Insider. “So, to help our own staff to practice self-care and take time to nurture their mental health, we immediately activated our annual summer hours program several months early. Everyone takes every other Friday off. It is time to reflect, rebuild, and connect with what matters to you personally.”
Reis is also supporting her team by having virtual coffees with small groups of her team on a weekly basis to check in and see how people are doing, acknowledging that nothing can replace face-to-face contact. The group also has weekly team activities over Zoom that have included a dance party, a birthday party, and a haiku happy hour where everyone contributed a poem.
“Having a positive, supportive culture is essential to our firm’s success. It always has been. You can’t have a great culture and truly be successful if the team isn’t in the right mindset,” Reis said. “This has been a time of ups and downs, and everyone is experiencing it differently. We are trying to figure out the new normal together.”
Perhaps the most wide-reaching contribution Reis has made, however, is her team’s #TakeCare social media campaign, targeted at raising awareness of the importance of mental health self-care, and the #TakeFive campaign, a micro-campaign within that campaign geared to specifically help people during COVID-19.
“With #TakeFive and #TakeCare, we aim to reach the broadest range of Americans possible by addressing the most prevalent and preventable healthcare problems facing our nation,” Reis said. “Our goal with these powerful short films is for each of us to see ourselves reflected in the diverse characters in the films — to help trigger an ‘ah-ha’ moment for each of us.”
A team collaboration software company covers the costs of mental health resources and focuses on wellness
San Francisco-based TeamLabs develops software for collaboration, and its chief people officer Justin Pierre said that taking a “three-pillar plan” to support the company’s 122 team members through the pandemic has been made a bit easier by the fact that they know “a thing or two about working well together.”
The company is relieving stress on its employees by providing financial help through an employee support fund, support groups, and physical wellness including team-led Zoom workout sessions — Pierre himself is responsible for the savasanas in the Monday morning yoga session.
“We’ve been personally affected by this crisis — two of our employees tested positive with this coronavirus in March,” Pierre said. “While both have since made full recoveries, this has impacted not just them but our entire team very deeply. As we’re in very uncertain times, with huge layoffs and pay cuts being so prominent, the first thing we did was to take steps that would help our team get through this strong and healthy.”
The company’s support for mental health programs includes paying for employees to obtain whatever services are needed.
“We’re allowing the team to use any mental health service, app, or therapist they are comfortable with, and the company is covering all the costs,” Pierre said. “We’re also doubling down on the existing systems and events we had, such as sit-downs, open mic nights, and other sessions, to help the team stay connected and provide support to each other.”
