May is Mental Health Awareness Month.
During this month, resources on mental health awareness have become synonymous with suicide prevention, advice on self-care, and statistics on how many Americans suffer from anxiety.
Rather than only these important elements of mental health, mental health awareness should include practical, grounded ways to support your mental health and the mental health of your employees.
That’s where we at Therify come in. Here are some ideas for commemorating Mental Health Awareness Month:
Offering employees a mental health reimbursement stipend
You offer your employees a gym membership, right? Why not offer them a reimbursement for mental health services? For example, you can offer $100 a week that each employee can put towards mental health services. Employees can ask their provider for a superbill or a receipt and submit these as reimbursement requests. With this benefit, employees can seek the best care without feeling as constrained by financial restrictions.
Help employees prioritize therapy appointments
This creates and sustains a culture of mental wellness at your company. Instead of having to choose between taking on a big client or going to therapy, help employees compromise so that they are not being punished with fewer opportunities at work by taking care of themselves by going to a mental health appointment.
Ask managers or team members in authority positions to put “therapy” in their calendar
It may seem radical, but having a culture in which managers, C-suite executives, or even all employees can openly write “therapy” in their calendars helps promote a culture of openness and vulnerability at work. It also can help with effective collaboration and cross-functional stakeholder engagement as team members can sensitively choose times for meetings throughout the work week.
Encourage employees to take mental health sick days.
This is another way to create and sustain a culture of mental wellness at your company. Being sick isn’t just physical – folks with or without diagnosed mental health conditions have days that they feel too anxious, depressed, tired, and/or mentally unwell to work effectively.
Rethink your bereavement policy
Bereavement is often only three days. After a loss, it can take three days to even accept that a loved one is gone. Add that to feeling the immense grief that can come alongside a loss and organizing logistics, potential childcare, and more, and employees may need 2+ weeks of bereavement time.
Those are a few ideas to boost the value that you place on mental health and well-being at your company. When companies express the importance of mental wellness, it’s clear to employees which companies prioritize mental health through policies put into place.
Which of these ideas can you incorporate at your workplace?
