Understanding an employee’s mental health has never been more important for managers. In a survey conducted by the Black Dog Institute, 78 per cent of respondents reported worsening mental health since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of all this R U OK? Day seems even more pertinent.
The pandemic has put us in a tailspin of working harder and harder to meet new challenges – in fact, a Harvard study found people working from home spend an additional 48 minutes connected to their office each day. But this flurry of activity is unlikely to be sustainable.
Mental health days are a modern invention. For many organisations, they fall under personal leave, the idea being you are taking care of your mental health the same way you would your physical health.
Mental health days aim to reduce presenteeism, or turning up to work but not actually being productive. The benefits of mental health days are that they give employees time to recharge if they’re feeling burnt out and can provide much needed time to seek additional help if poor mental health has become an ongoing issue for the employee.
An important distinction to be aware of is the difference between mental health and mental illness – they’re not terms that can be used interchangeably. Mental health is like physical health and has natural ups and downs. Some days you wake up feeling like you can run a marathon, and other days walking to the bus stops feels like a hike.
Mental illness usually refers to a diagnosable condition. People with mental illness can have fantastic mental health, while someone with no mental illness might have poor mental health.
An employee taking a mental health day could be anywhere on this spectrum and they have no real obligation to tell their employer why they might need a mental health day.
Have the conversation
If COVID-19 has a silver lining it could be the increase in mental health conversations. From the early stages of lockdown, there has been a focus on the psychological impacts of isolation and the feeling of grief that has settled over us. But that doesn’t mean everyone is ready to talk about their vulnerabilities, so it’s important employers takes a proactive approach in opening up those lines of communication and creating a safe space for employees to speak up.
Noticing employee behaviour and whether they’re showing signs of poor mental health is much easier in a face to face workplace. Checking in online can be difficult so one thing you can do is taking the incidental conversations of everyday office life and formalising them in regular catch up.
Beyond mental health days
Of course, while mental health days help, they should be considered within a wider mental health framework.
Mental health needs to be an ongoing discussion within workplaces to overcome cultural or personal roadblocks that keep employees from addressing their own issues and should begin early and address the benefits of seeking help.
Employers should be prepared for the conversation moving beyond what managers or HR can provide. Having third-party experts are really important.
Managers don’t need to be the experts in mental health, but they do need to know who to speak to if the answer to ‘are you ok?’ is ‘no’.”
If you or anyone you know needs help you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636
Contact us if you would like help normalising mental health days in your workplace.