Looking after your colleagues, employees, and yourself
World Mental Health Day
Saturday 10th October is World Mental Health Day – we aim to raise awareness around Mental Health, so that it is something we ALL feel comfortable talking about and feel better able to ask for help. So, over the next week, please take some time to stop and reflect on your own well-being and check in with your colleagues as to how they’re feeling at the moment. Or you may wish to go with the Young Minds #HelloYellow campaign and wear yellow to show you support young people’s mental health.
Mindful Employer & Looking after your workforce in the storm of a pandemic
Employers might want to consider signing up for Mindful Employer Plus which provides a telephone helpline for employees. It offers a listening ear, guidance and signposting to further advice on any issue either in or out of the workplace. Their number is 0300 555 6006, 24 hours, 7 days a week.
Pansensic is developing a Mental Health domain toolset to analyse thousands of comments relating to mental health issues, mental health services, and alternative therapeutic treatments. Aiming to provide a scalable solution to help clinicians manage the mental well-being of their patients, this will also help individuals help themselves in the journey towards improvement and recovery.
Mental Health and the pitfalls of working from home
The increase in employees working from home highlights the importance of maintaining personal well-being. According to a recent article by the World Economic Forum 98% of people surveyed, said they would like the option to work remotely for the rest of their careers. But not everything is positive, with workers finding the biggest challenge is ‘unplugging’ from work.
There is an increased risk of blurring between work and non-work boundaries. 41% of remote workers reported high stress levels. 52% who worked from home (at least some of the time) were more likely to feel left out and mistreated, as well as unable to deal with conflict between themselves and colleagues. Emphasis was felt to be misplaced, too much on tasks and too little on relationships. These factors and the long-term effects of increased isolation could trigger additional mental health concerns.
Pansensic, supporting employers to develop their “Employee Mental Health Strategy”
Pansensic and our partners continue to develop empathetic chatbots and self-heal/personal-optimisation applications. These technologies deliver multiple benefits including enabling early warning signals for mental health clinicians and providing huge potential by enabling employers to –
- Identify the early warning signs of employee’s mental health.
- Providing actionable insights for developing an “Employee Mental Health Strategy”. Monitor, Identify, Motivation & Support, Action, Aftercare.
- Enabling employers to meet the Health and Safety requirement relating to remote workers.