Leadership and Employee Mental Health

“Don’t wish things were easier, wish you were better.” Jim Rohn

Public Health officials and Main stream media are now joining the social media about impending crisis of mental health as a result of restrictions, fears, anxiety and uncertainty associated with the COVID 19 Pandemic. In the business and corporate world the wellbeing of the employees is first and foremost the responsibility of leadership and management.

Corporate Leadership has three options for dealing with the mental health and wellbeing of their most important asset (employees) and the long term sustainability of their businesses.

1.      The Reactive Approach

2.      The Proactive (Wellness) Approach

3.      Combination Model

The reactive approach is to wait for the mental illnesses to strike in the form of overwhelm, fatigue, stress, depression, anxiety etc. If nothing is done by the corporate leadership, this is inevitable which will result in reduced productivity and could threaten the long term sustainability of the organization.

In the Wellness approach, the leadership takes proactive actions to prevent the mental health of the employees from becoming a problem. In the West it is good that we live and work in developed societies and our governments have the wisdom, capacity and resources to help and take care of us. However, there is a limit to all three and it is up to the corporate leadership in every organization to take the initiative in its own best interest.

The old saying “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure” applies here. Proactively dealing with managing the increased level of stress and uncertainty that everyone is facing, can insure organizations that their biggest and most important asset (employees) will remain in good shape. Those who take action in this regard to develop and implement a plan for taking care of their employees will have an edge over the competition during and post pandemic. Considering that prevention is more cost effective than cure in terms of absenteeism, sick leaves and loss of productivity, the proactive approach make a good business sense too.

The proactive approach does not negate the reactive model. Some people will fall through the cracks and will need to be cured through the reactive model. When that happens we will still need a robust system in the society to deal with it. And that is what I call the Combination Model. The less people go through the reactive model, the better the wellbeing of the individuals, the organizations and the society as a whole and the readier we will be for the new post pandemic normal.

We have developed and tested a unique program for the proactive model called “Stress Pandemic and the SixPack Solution”. If you are interested, contact us for a free consultation.