Why and how you should build a mental health resource hub for your employees now
As we’ve mentioned in other recent blogs, the best thing you can do for your employer brand and company reputation right now is the right thing. Treating your employees well, communicating openly about what’s happening, and providing your team with resources to manage change and stress is one of the best things you can do.
On top of being the right thing to do, prioritizing employee well-being impacts your employer brand because by providing a positive employee experience now, employees will have great things to say about your organization on employer review sites and in conversations with their network.
Employees will remember that you treated them with kindness and provided support during a difficult time, which will also help with retention even after this crisis is over.
Empathy, compassion, and transparent communications go a long way, and employers that demonstrate these traits now are being celebrated across social media — and are likely to experience more positive business outcomes than competitors who are treating their employees poorly (just check out this site that advises people where to spend money based on how companies are treating their employees!).
There are a range of ways that you can show empathy and offer support as an employer brand or HR professional right now, including creating new programming, updating your policies, crafting communications from leadership and much more. However, in this piece we’re honing in on how you might approach creating a mental health resource hub to provide your employees with essential information and show them that you care how they’re faring through all of this.
What is a mental health resource hub?
A mental health resource hub is a reference page that employees can use to access information to help them manage their well-being during this stressful and isolating time.
As Jennifer Moss, Co-Founder at Plasticity Labs explains in an article for the CBC, “A lack of routine can reduce our motivation to engage in healthy behaviours like exercising, eating well — but during the pandemic even standard routines are hard to keep up. [...] That can cause a ton of anxiety for people who suffer from depression or anxiety or other mood disorders — a lifestyle that can create a trap for deeper anxiety/depression.”
Your resource hub should work to counter this by providing tools, information, and links to support your people so that they can regain a sense of normalcy that will positively impact their mental health. You might build out this resource hub on an internal wiki like Confluence or Notion, or you can post it to your company’s intranet.
What should your mental health resource hub include?
Your mental health resource hub should be composed of answers to a range of company specific questions, alongside resources that answer more general questions and concerns that your employee base might have right now.
Company specific resources
You should look to include company specific answers to FAQs like:
Who can I talk to if I’m feeling distressed?
What employee benefits or resources can I access to help?
What types of activities are ongoing that can help me connect with coworkers outside of work? For instance, we’ve heard of employees leading stretches, yoga, and meditation sessions for colleagues. In other cases, employees have started up virtual card or board game hours to recreate in-office socials and stave off loneliness.
External resources
You can also compile a list of links by category that help to answer more general FAQS like:
How should I be managing my anxiety and stress right now?
How do I balance parenting and work?
How do I deal with feeling lonely while in isolation?
What are some best practices to take care of myself and avoid burnout while working remotely?
Mental health resources to share with employees
Here are a few external resources that may be helpful to include or reference in your own employee resource hub:
American Psychological Association (APA)’s “COVID-19 Information and Resources” page
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)’s “Mental health and COVID-19” page
The Center for Workplace Mental Health’s “Working remotely during COVID-19” page
Gitlab’s “Combating burnout, isolation, and anxiety in the remote workplace” page (not COVID-19 related, but intended for managing mental health for remote employees)
There are many additional resources that you should be able to locate from a brief Google search that you can pull answers from and link out to directly for further reading. Best of luck building out your own resource hub, and if you need any assistance please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team for free information.
Lastly, thanks to Sam Trieu for her blog post topic suggestion. We welcome anyone with blog topic ideas, or questions they’d like answered in blog format, to let us know. We always want our blog to be filled with useful and timely resources — and this is particularly the case during this crisis period as we want to help you continue to thrive. We look forward to hearing from you!
About The Employer Brand Shop
The Employer Brand Shop is a boutique recruitment marketing and employer brand agency located in Kitchener, Canada. Our team helps organizations around the world attract and engage talent using creative marketing strategies.