13 May 8 PR Initiatives to Support Mental Health in The Workplace

By: Jennifer Vickery, National Strategies PR

Mental Health is an important aspect for all human beings, especially for those working in nonprofits and helping others in the community and often with sensitive topics. As a nonprofit PR Specialist, I want to shine light on some initiatives that will hopefully make people better understand how to deal with mental health issues and how nonprofits can help support this issue every day.

Check out this list of ideas below:

Create mental health training opportunities for your employees

If you’re looking to help your employees recognize and address the symptoms of declining mental health, consider creating a training program. This will allow your employees to identify symptoms in themselves and others, learn how to support colleagues who may be struggling with their mental health, and understand what resources are available for them as well.

If you have existing mental health training programs in place, consider updating them to include information that is timelier and more applicable.

Provide a safe environment for open conversations about mental health

Creating a safe environment for open conversations about mental health is one of the most important things you can do. This will help your employees know that it’s okay to ask for help, which in turn means they’ll be more likely to seek it out.

To create this environment:

• Discuss mental health openly with your staff; don’t make assumptions about people based on their appearance or behavior. For example, someone with depression may appear energetic because they’re trying to hide their illness from others, but an employee who thinks, “I’d never want to work here if I were depressed,” might miss the chance to help that person by offering support and encouragement.
• Be supportive when employees share information about themselves or others around them (e.g., “I saw Jane having a hard conversation over lunch today”).  Avoid making judgments about these situations—it’s not always easy for people to talk about how they feel or what’s happening around them.”

Encourage employees to take breaks during the day

• Short breaks are good for your health and mental wellbeing and can help you be more productive at work*. Taking a walk, stretching or chatting with a colleague can break up the monotony of sitting at your desk all day.

Implement mental health days into paid leave policies

• Employees can use these days to take a break from work and recharge.
• Companies with wellness days tend to be more successful than those without them, according to research on this topic.

Designate a wellness liaison in each department

A wellness liaison is an employee specially trained on how to support their colleagues and help them access the resources they need for mental health support. They may be responsible for organizing company-wide events that promote healthy lifestyle choices, or they might have specific expertise in dealing with particular issues related to stress, anxiety, and depression.

Because of the unique needs of each person and organization, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to selecting your wellness liaison. Some companies choose a generalist approach in which they select an employee from every department; others prefer a more specialized selection process where each department has its own wellness liaison. You can also decide if you want your wellness team to work across multiple teams within your organization or just within one department at a time (for example: HR could provide support during onboarding). Whatever approach you take will depend on what works best for your team—just remember that it’s important not only to designate someone as the main point of contact but also ensure they have enough knowledge about all areas of mental health support so that people know where else they can go if needed!

Hold staff meetings to discuss mental health initiatives and news in the field

You can start by holding staff meetings to discuss mental health initiatives and news in the field. These meetings are also a good time to get feedback on how your company is doing with its overall mental health strategy and suggestions for improvement. Try starting each meeting with a positive topic (e.g., talking about how great it feels when you were able to help someone feel better), then move on to discussing upcoming events or campaigns that will involve your employees.

Give experts a platform to speak about mental health and share their stories

Create a regular cadence to have a speaker come in and talk about mental health and share their positive approaches. Invite these guest speakers from outside organizations to come in and talk about their experiences with managing mental health issues at work.

Provide Mental Health Resources

Subscriptions to apps such as Headspace or Calm might be a great employee benefit and can support mental health in their own privacy. There are other subscriptions such as BetterHelp or TalkSpace that are a benefit that provides a connection with a counselor via phone call or text in which employees can use at any time. These services may just be the discreet yet effective types of tools that make a big difference in supporting mental health.

It’s important that you support your employees’ mental health, especially if your organization is in a high-stress industry.

As a manager, it’s important that you support your employees’ mental health. It’s not just high-stress industries like healthcare, nonprofits or law enforcement—even if your organization is not in one of these fields, stress levels are increasing for everyone. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reports that 40% of Americans have experienced some form of work-related stress over the past 12 months; additionally, 47% felt too mentally exhausted to do their jobs effectively as often or more than once in the past month (1).

Your organization can take steps to help reduce stress among its workforce by offering flexible schedules and encouraging employees to take time off when needed. These practices may be particularly useful for those working long hours due to tight deadlines or other demands on their time. Additionally, it’s important that employers implement wellness programs such as health screening programs that include mental health screenings so they can identify signs of depression early on before they become serious problems.

About Jennifer Vickery: Jennifer is the President and CEO of National Strategies Public Relations, a PR firm that focuses on nonprofits and organizations with corporate social responsibility initiatives. Her background is in national public relations campaigns, where she oversees every aspect of PR strategy utilizing her 16+ years of senior-level experience. She’s worked for hundreds of national clientele through every facet of PR. Jennifer has extensive experience, including writing a regular column for a newspaper, producing a health television segment, serving as a radio personality for advocacy issues, producing a weekly radio show, to owning and running a successful public relations firm. Jennifer states media relations, community outreach and goodwill, in addition to strategic planning, as her favorite aspects of PR.

Jennifer is truly inspired and lives every day knowing she is making an impact on the lives of people in the community by providing expert information and the best-of-the-best in businesses, community involvement and goodwill.