Most company owners pride themselves on being good employers, with good salaries, flexible working options, and training and development opportunities for all. They would be shocked if they discovered that they were somehow inadvertently damaging their employees’ mental health and well-being due to the way they had their work organised. Taking a bit of extra time to research and redesign work has proven to have a substantially positive impact on employee well-being and mental health.
Redesigning work to foster better employee well-being not only benefits the employee; indeed, there are benefits for businesses too, such as improved job performance which leads to increased productivity, or lower levels of burnout leading to lower turnover of staff. As an ethical finance recruitment company, we place employee well-being at the top of our priority list. We make sure that a candidate is taken care of from their first meeting with us, all the way through the recruitment process, and then when they are placed within a business too. Partnering with us as your local ethical finance recruitment company could benefit your company in so many ways.
Let’s have a look at some practical steps you can take to become an employer who prioritises employee well-being and mental health:
Staff well-being starts with being well-staffed.
Taking on more staff to spread demand may incur a cost initially, however, this is nothing in comparison to the cost to your business when employees are off sick, burnt out or quit altogether. Research shows that long hours and high pressure, especially when coupled with a lack of control, are linked with depression, high blood pressure, and heart disease.
Employees need the assurance that you have their back and are not going to spread them thin. Gone are the days when people would stay behind longer and unpaid at the expense of their own time and health, and this is especially true of the newest generation of workers entering the market. Now more than ever before, employees are aware of the value of good mental health and general well-being and are therefore much more protective of it. As an ethical finance recruitment company, we can certainly help you not only source great staff but also through partnership, help you retain them too.
Provide stability in schedules
Providing stable and predictable patterns of work has been proven to reduce workplace stress and the resulting health issues. In the finance world, there are certain times of the year when things can be a lot busier than others, but planning people’s rotas well in advance so they are aware and prepared will make a huge difference to burnout statistics. Hiring some interim staff to deal with peak periods will show your employees that you value them enough to support them when the going gets tough, or incentivising overtime with clearly defined hours and rewards, and then communicating in good time is another example of providing stability, even in a pressured period.
Empowering employees to take some control over how, when and where they work is part of this stability too. Employees who feel trusted to get the job done, have proven over and over that they do a better job. A huge part of stress in the workplace can be down to erratic rotas, and a feeling of helplessness when there’s nothing that can be done to calm the chaos. While the same amount of hours may be worked over a couple of weeks, when shifts start eating into evenings, weekends, children’s sports fixtures, school plays etc, the amount of hours worked becomes irrelevant. Instead ‘work’ seems to dominate and take over every area of life, leading to stress, resentment, and bad well-being in general.
Ensure managers know how to manage people, not just processes.
Many managers are in their position because they’ve worked hard and become good at their particular job. However, ‘manager’ should not just be a title that is given as a reward for hard work – when that is the case, the wheels soon fall off for example; when the really good accountant has to mediate a workplace disagreement or performance-manage a member of staff who is consistently falling short of their targets – being a really good accountant, doesn’t automatically make you a really good manager – just like knowing how to keep accounts, doesn’t mean you know how to hold people accountable.
People management is a skill that needs to be learned and put into practice long before the title ever appears on the signature strip. So, investing in leadership and management training is essential to ensuring your managers are equipped to not just look after profit and processes, but people too. This doesn’t just benefit the employees they are responsible for, it will also alleviate the stress related to insecurity, imposter syndrome, or basic overwhelm for the managers themselves too.
Create a culture of belonging.
Research has shown that creating a work culture in which employees can develop supportive relationships with their colleagues, results in lower stress, and increased employee well-being. This doesn’t need to be complex or ‘weird’ – who doesn’t cringe at the companies who talk about being a ‘family’? It can be created in simple ways, by putting clear structure, effective communication, good management, and general care for well-being at the top of the priority list.
Many HR management systems now come in app form for your employees to download, meaning they can see their rota at a glance, as well as who is working with them on any given day, and even who’s on holiday when. Being able to access and control your work life at your fingertips may seem like a small thing, but truthfully, it can make a huge difference. Simple systems like this can provide the basic framework upon which managers overlay processes, to then deliver results – results being happy staff, greater productivity, and overall greater team well-being.
