Supporting the mental health of your employees during Covid-19

Helen Smith

Business Health and Wellbeing Services Provider

Business Health and Wellbeing Services Provider

Supporting the mental health of your employees during Covid-19

Research from Benenden Health indicates Covid-19 is heavily impacting mental health – but workers feel support from their employer is lacking.

By Helen Smith

A few months ago most of your employees would have never heard of Covid-19, but now it’s the biggest factor affecting their daily lives.

So here at Benenden Health we conducted our own research to understand how this is impacting employees and share insights into the challenges Covid-19 poses to their daily life, work and mental wellbeing.

Our research – which ran between 15 and 20 April 2020 and comprised 2,455 respondents – shows up to 23 million people in the UK could be struggling with poor mental health as a result of the current climate.

Over a third of respondents feel the pandemic has negatively impacted their mental wellbeing

Even more worryingly, the pandemic is causing over 1 in 10 people to suffer from poor mental wellbeing for the first time. These people may be particularly vulnerable as they’re unsure how to get help if their stress or anxiety is prolonged, and without the right support this could lead to long-term health issues.

The impact of balancing work and childcare

Having children at home was identified as a key stress factor. More than half (58.31%) of the respondents with children aged 0-16, whose mental wellbeing has been negatively affected, reported that balancing working from home and childcare was having an impact. Of these, a third (33.59%) are worried they’re not performing to their best professional capacity.

A third of employees felt unsupported by their employer

Sadly, many employers don’t seem to be doing enough to support their workforces at a time when they’re most susceptible to poor mental wellbeing, with over a third of individuals surveyed (37.80%) saying more support from their employer would help, particularly in the form of:

Knowing their job is safe (22.04%)
Providing mental health or wellbeing support (8.19%)
Being more understanding about the pressures of juggling childcare with working (7.8%)

Tips for supporting your employees

While it’s not surprising to see the effect the Covid-19 pandemic has had upon the mental health of the UK public, what is surprising is that businesses aren’t taking simple steps to help support their workforces and protect positive wellbeing at a time when many people are struggling.

As an employer, there are a few key steps you can take to help support the mental wellbeing of your workers, while inspiring greater loyalty, productivity and motivation. These include:

Offering assurances (where possible)
Promoting open communication between senior management, line managers and employees
Heightening manager awareness of compromised mental wellbeing
Providing access to mental wellbeing support
Clearly signposting available employee wellbeing services
Being mindful of different employees’ needs
Offering flexibility where possible
Keeping in mind and encouraging a healthy work-life balance