Mental health and wellbeing is an important topic in any workplace. It ensures your employees are aware of their mental health and gives you a chance to talk about the signs of stress and what can be done when your employees experience them.
More importantly, it shows your employees you care about their wellbeing, which can help improve your company’s productivity, retention and overall corporate culture. What’s not to love!
With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, this is the perfect time to talk about it with your employees. To help spread the message, here are some important mental health messages to share and activities that complement them.
- Positive feedback
Positive feedback and recognition helps motivate, boost confidence and let employees know they are valued. It can also help build bonds between team members, which builds a sense of community and support. These are all important aspects of maintaining positive mental health.
To help demonstrate the benefits of positive feedback, encourage peer-to-peer shout outs. One of the best ways to do this is to ask staff to either do shout outs in meetings or submit their shout outs in advance to be read.
- Work-life balance
Work-life balance is about balancing the demands of work with a personal life. The importance of having a work-life balance has gained a lot of traction in recent years. A big part of this is that studies show maintaining a good work-life balance can reduce stress and prevent burnout in the workplace.
To emphasize the importance of work-life balance, consider letting your staff go a couple of hours early one weekend. Encourage staff to take the extra time for a little self-care and do something they enjoy. Alternatively, you can organize an employee lunch. While this isn’t necessarily a personal obligation, it will give staff a chance to relax and bond without the formalities of the workplace.
Did you know that Teambonders provides activities that will unite both on-site and remote workers in a fun, recreational event? Here's some examples...
- Exercise
Exercise is great for your physical health. But it can also improve mental health by reducing anxiety and depression and increasing self-esteem, cognitive function and positive moods. When done outside, we get even more mental and physical health benefits thanks to the fresh air.
To help emphasize the importance of getting outside and exercising for mental health, find a fun activity your team can do together. This may be taking a hike, doing a scavenger hunt or going to a local rock-climbing venue. Whatever you choose, make sure it is something everyone can do or that there are multiple options so nobody feels left out.
- Socializing
That’s a good segway to our next mental health message - the importance of socializing.
Humans need companionship to thrive. Building relationships can help people feel like they are part of something bigger and create connections that help boost mental health. In fact, being social has been shown to ease stress, anxiety and depression, while improving self-worth, joy and feelings of comfort.
There are tons of great team building activities you can try to get your staff to socialize. This includes building and puzzle games, scavenger hunts, game shows, trivia hours, cooking challenges and more. You can even combine it with one of the other mental health activities we’ve talked about like eating out or exercising together.
- Coping mechanisms
When we’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, coping mechanisms can help us adjust and maintain our emotional well-being. There are lots of great coping mechanisms people can try including a relaxing activity like meditating or listening to music, a physical activity like swimming or hiking, reaching out to coworkers to ask for help and making light of a stressful situation in a humorous way.
After talking about the importance of coping mechanisms and work appropriate options, ask team members what they find helps them destress. You can also get your staff to try out some common coping mechanisms as a group, like meditation, pottery painting or going for a walk.
Helping employees maintain good mental health in the workplace is critical to their success and yours. If your staff are feeling stressed or burnt out, they will be less motivated, less productive and more likely to leave. So take the time to show that you care about their mental health, implement workplace procedures focused on mental wellbeing and make sure they know how to recognize they need support and ask for it.
Interested in learning more about our team building activities? Get in touch with Teambonders today. Our team of experts would love to answer your questions.
