Mental health at work is a critical issue that affects hundreds of millions of people around the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression and anxiety disorders are the most common mental health issues worldwide. The WHO also estimates that mental health issues result in an annual loss of $1 trillion in productivity globally. However such numbers remain vague at best.
To be more concrete, the latest Deloitte UK report ‘Mental health and employers. The case for investment – pandemic and beyond', from March 2022, summed up such costs for employers in the UK.
The annual mental health cost per employee varies between £1035 ($1345 or 1150€) and £3,710 ($4820 or 4,120€).
Such costs are mostly unacknowledged and unnoticed by employers.
Furthermore, studies have shown employees experiencing mental health issues are more likely to take time off work or leave their jobs altogether, resulting in increased costs for employers.
In addition to financial implications, mental health issues significantly impact how organizations operate. Individuals facing mental health challenges may have trouble staying focused, struggle to concentrate on their work and experience fatigue, all of which can result in lower performance or increased absenteeism.
By prioritizing mental health at work and providing resources such as mental wellness training, employers can reduce these costs and support the well-being of their employees.
How to prevent mental health issues?
To prevent mental health issues at work, we have developed systematic proactive mental wellness trainings.
Wellness Orbit online training provides individuals with the knowledge and skills needed to lead their thoughts and identify and manage their emotions and behaviors effectively. By participating in these trainings, employees can discover practical strategies to cope with stress, anxiety, and other work-related mental health issues.
Systematic mind health training leads to increased resilience, productivity and job satisfaction.
Prevention is equally crucial in supporting and promoting mental health at work. Employers should provide supportive work conditions that encourage life-work integration, promote healthy lifestyle habits, and prioritize mental wellness as an essential aspect of overall well-being.
Start fostering a culture of wellness
By fostering a culture of mental wellness, workplaces can prevent the development of mental health issues and reduce stress and the risk of burnout and other negative outcomes.
Unfavorable attitudes and stereotypes surrounding individuals with mental health issues, known as stigma, can influence social interactions within the workplace. Overcoming the stigma and discrimination is another critical component of promoting mental wellness at work. The word wellness is stigma-free and seen as positive.
Employers can reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues by shifting the focus to the positive side of the mental health scale (see the image below and look at the right-hand side of the graph).
On the left side, you find the current reactive mental health approach. On the right side are the benefits of the proactive mental wellness application.
Systematic mental wellness training can create real opportunities to thrive and live a healthy and productive life. As you can notice, mental wellness in essence allows several superpowers to appear. Only a healthy mind can remain calm and handle difficult and stressor-rich challenges well.
Between mental illness and mental wellness, a spectrum of mental health states exists. Depending on symptoms and severity on one end and the level of inner wellness on the other, individuals can navigate and shift between these states at various points in time.
Psychological strain, a prolonged state of distress and tension, isn't a diagnosable mental illness. Nevertheless, consistent exposure to stressors and an inability to manage stress or anxiousness can significantly deteriorate mental health, potentially leading to a decline in overall well-being.
Given the spectrum between mental illness and mental wellness, proactively training your mind becomes crucial for maintaining well-being. This proactive approach helps build resilience, manage symptoms, and navigate the spectrum effectively, promoting a healthier and more balanced mental state.
Also, mental wellness training provides additional resources and support for those who are already ill or need psychological safety networks. Here employers may need partners (therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists). However, if prevention is systematic, such support or treatment costs can be reduced or even fully prevented.
Mental wellness as a positive goal for your team
If mental wellness is widely talked about and seen as something positive, employees can start taking care of their mental health needs proactively.
We do hope that training your mind becomes as popular as training your physical body. However, the mental wellness revolution is just starting and there is still a long way to go. For employers, it is important to know that mental wellness is an investment that allows tenfold ROI, while (mental) health-related costs are the expenses that often slip unnoticed by leaders.
The new proactive mental wellness training approach
A proactive mental health training approach at work is new. It centers around mental wellness and equips individuals with practical self-leadership skills.
Such practical intrapersonal skills enable us to notice what is going on within our minds. Such self-supportive skills are also needed to identify and lead intrapersonally processes, like noticing the whereabouts of their focus/attention and bringing it back to relevant topics.
Our mind consists of thoughts and emotions and how those subconsciously run influences heavily our individual and group behaviors. We often fail to spot our patterns here as we lack intrapersonal education.
Mental wellness training is easy and affordable
By participating in mental wellness online training, business leaders and employees can discover applicable strategies to reduce stress, prevent burnout and deal with anxiousness or more serious mental health issues.
Every Wellness Orbit online training includes a self-evaluation of individual mental wellness before and after each training and provides feedback on what actions to take to stay well.
Systematic assessments of individual mental wellness situations can identify areas for self-improvement and secure a roadmap for achieving better mental fitness and improving mental sharpness.
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Developing our minds is an important key aspect of achieving psychological safety, reducing stress and preventing mental health issues. It is a systematic and professionally curated mental wellness effort that allows for securing workplace wellbeing and excellent employee engagement. We have made making such an effort easy and affordable.
The essence of proactive mental wellness online trainings
As stress and burnout are the pathways to many mental health issues we, recommend you start by taking your team to the online training "Performing Under Pressure". In this training, psychiatrist and mental wellness expert Dr. Helena Lass provides effective techniques for reducing stress and obtaining the essential knowledge of how to spot burnout before it turns serious.
Observing what you eat, how you sleep, when and how often to take breaks and lead your thoughts and emotions allows milder or reduced inner reactivity. The training "Well Fit For Work" improves overall mental wellbeing and delivers tools to relax and sleep better.
All Wellness Orbit online trainings teach applicable intrapersonal skills that support self-leadership and solving work-related challenges. Thus, the outcomes are improved resilience and improvement of individual initiative. You can implement this initiative to keep yourself well and secure more productive work patterns without a need to experience excess stress.
If you desire also to see productivity and employee engagement uplifted, the online training "Getting Things Done" permits this. This wellbeing focused training allows turning around your subconscious habits into healthy life patterns.
Combining Wellness Orbit's online trainings allows to achieve an uplift in employee productivity, improve employee engagement and improve overall wellness. What you can measure, you can improve, that is why individual mental wellness testing matters!
Self-evaluating your mental wellness status enables you to properly understand your current mental health situation and discover how to improve it.
Conclusion
By taking proactive mental wellness trainings that allow self-evaluating inner possess people can learn to see mental wellness as something to strive for. When they are mentally well their life quality enhances.
Mental health at work is a critical issue that requires proactive measures to promote proactivity, prevention and psychological support, it all allows for overcoming stigma and discrimination.
Systematic and proactive mental wellness training represents an essential tool providing individuals with the knowledge and skills needed to manage their inner domain and behaviors effectively. By prioritizing mental health, organizations can foster a positive work environment that supports the well-being and productivity of all staff members.
Let us remind you, that securing excellent mental wellness requires continuous efforts from leaders and employees. However intrapersonal skills are here the foundation that you can build everything else upon.