A recent viral twitter post where Elmo - you read that right, the Sesame Street character - casually asked how people were doing proved a reminder of the prolific and dire state of mental health today. Over 20,000 followers responded, citing anxiety, fear and existential dread, much resulting from their work situation. This reflects data showing 3 in 4 working adults have mental health symptoms. Yet only half feel comfortable discussing it at work.
With stress negatively impacting productivity, proactive leaders must make employee wellbeing a priority. This starts at the top by regularly checking in and ensuring adequate support resources. But listening must extend company-wide to uncover cultural issues that may be worsening mental health, like toxic work environments.
Empowering managers and strengthening leave policies are key. But leaders themselves need support as employee struggles weigh heavily. Ultimately, organizations that create cultures promoting holistic wellness will reap rewards in engagement, retention and performance. No longer can employers ignore the mental health crisis; it demands strategic action to build workplaces where all can thrive.
It's easy to shrug these challenges off or pay them lip service. After all, those in charge of the business (HCI’s readers) have to deal with much more stress and challenge than those at the bottom of the pyramid right? While the world may be easier than it was ‘back in the day’, difficulty has been replaced with overwhelming complexity, this is cognitively and emotionally overwhelming.
Parents who didn't grow up coping with the pressures of such complexity struggle to provide sage advice. Issues like cyberbullying, algorithm-driven depression funnels on social media, and the world's anxiety beamed into incessant Twitter updates have not been solved or really even addressed by the authorities and institutions that have a responsibility for them…and so it bleeds into the workforce.
While it's far from the boss's prerogative to solve, playing a solid role in holistically supporting your people is an opportunity to truly step up as a leader in a new type of battle.
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