We have written quite a bit about the impact of mental health on the workplace, and vice versa. We believe it is a vitally important part of life to talk about in conjunction with mental health, as almost every single person will set foot into a workplace of some description at some point in their life, and for the majority of people, it becomes a fundamental aspect of their life, and even their personality.
Yet, until quite recently, we have all gone to work every day and faced multiple and various mental health influences without linking the two. Factors from home will come into the workplace with us, but we have tended to separate them as irrelevant to the work environment – this is far too simplistic a view of the way in which our minds work. What we experience at home will continue to affect us at work, and the same is true the other way around – experiences at work will have an impact beyond the office doors.
It is only a relatively recent trend for business owners to recognise the importance of taking notice of the wellbeing of their employees, and spending time and money investing in optimising how the workforce is feeling. They are realising how much the way that employees feel impacts on the performance of the business – after all, if someone feels positive and motivated, they are far more likely to work productively and with passion than someone who feel downbeat or stressed. And if all employees feel mostly positive, then the workplace culture as a whole becomes positive supportive and creative.
In an upcoming podcast episode, we speak to Alistair Booth, founder of The HR Booth (an organisation that provides HR services to other businesses) about the changes he has seen in recent years. He discusses how the priority given to wellbeing has become a significant factor in how employees choose where they wish to work, and even though there are still organisations that don’t view it to be essential, these are the companies that will eventually be left behind because they will be unable to recruit the talented people they require.
By understanding how the workforce feels and placing an emphasis on being a caring, supportive employer, an organisation can reap a multitude of benefits, from improved productivity, increased creativity and innovation, and the ability to attract highly skilled and experienced employees, to less absenteeism, presenteeism and sickness, better retention of staff and an empathetic work culture.
All of the above returns will demonstrate how effective a shift in attitude can be on profitability, which is ultimately the measure that matters to most businesses.
However, we believe that focusing on the emotional wellbeing of employees can go much further than simply improving the bottom line. By putting wellbeing at the forefront of business strategy and making it a valid metric in its own right, instead of a rigid concentration on financial gain, business owners can provide their employees with a nurturing environment that helps them improve their wellbeing across all areas of their life.
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