How Can HR Departments/Businesses Honor World Mental Health Day Virtually

Honoring Mental Health Day is something that needs to be taken more seriously by organizations globally, especially as we are so unconnected to each other socially these days due to COVID. From sharing podcasts, books and resources that are related to mental wellbeing to hosting virtual meditation sessions, there are a lot of activities that HRs can make employees partake in to virtually honor World Mental Health Day. We recommend the following activities to HRs to honor World Mental Health Day:

• Sharing or gifting self-help books (The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Who Moved My Cheese, 7 habits of highly effective people)
• Sharing podcasts that talk about mental wellbeing or movies! (Eat, Pray Love!)
• Hosting virtual meditation sessions
• Open an anonymous forum where employees can freely talk about any issues that they are facing
• Take a vote! Ask the employees what they want to do!”

COVID-19 has taken its toll on everything. With people losing their jobs and businesses getting shut down, the mindset of people all around the world is tremendously negative and stressed. The situation has shaken the base of every organization and the things that we took for granted have been put under great scrutiny. The working class has suffered the most. Their resilience has been tested and employees everywhere need some morale boosters that would cheer them up and help them to uplift their mood.

There are some things that employers can do regularly to help the employees have a positive and healthy frame of mind:

• Keep in touch with employees about their and their near ones wellbeing
• Ask them how they are handling working remotely and what can be done to improve their productivity
• Organize online activities to keep employees spirit high such as workout sessions, motivational speaking etc.
• Praise them for their hard work and dedication.
• Reward them for achieving company goals.
• Make their working hours flexible as much as possible.
• Improve their access to company resources.
• Redefine their healthcare benefits, if possible.
• Increase remote working.
• Have frequent communication with the employees about their work-related requirements