December Challenge: Mental Well-Being

Work is getting more demanding and complex, and because many of us now work in 24/7 environments, anxiety and burnout are not uncommon. In our high-pressure workplaces, staying productive and engaged can be challenging. With 2017 nearing a close, we are excited to share our December Challenge with you, as we think about the past year and the likely stressful situations that we have all encountered. 

December Challenge – Mental Well-being

New research from the Deloitte Centre for Health Solutions places workplace mental health and well-being at a tipping point, with employers increasingly reviewing their activities in supporting employee mental health and well-being. Recognizing the costs of poor mental health and well-being on today’s workforce, the report is designed as a call to action for employers, whatever their current performance regarding mental health and well-being strategies.
Mental health and well-being describe our mental state – how we are feeling and how well we can cope with day-to-day life. Promoting mental health and well-being in the workplace is important for employees, their employers, society, and the economy. This is because of poor mental health impacts individuals' overall health, their ability to work productively (if at all), their relationships with others, and societal costs related to unemployment, poor workplace productivity, and health and social care.

Over half of the global workforce (53%) are reporting that they are closer to burnout than they were just five years ago, according to a Regus Group survey of over 22,000 business people across 100 countries. Becoming actively engaged in their own health and well-being and participate in strategies that promote both mental and physical well-being can help to combat stress. This includes employee involvement in workplace programs around mental health, with potential actions including volunteering as a mental health champion or making efforts to address stigma through sharing personal stories. This also means that we need to understand and prioritize activities that promote well-being for ourselves and our teams. This could include such things as offering personal development tools, like mindfulness and resilience training; explicitly encouraging people to take time for exercise or other renewal activities, such as walking meetings; or building buffer time into deliverable calendars so that people can work flexibly and at a manageable pace. For more ideas on how to help manage stress, check out this HBR article, Help Your Team Manage Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout. No matter your strategy, know that having one is key to your mental well-being.

For this challenge, we ask that you become more mindful of your own mental well-being and develop a personal strategy for combating this very real challenge in our work environments.

To join the challenge, simply:
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1. Identify what your own well-being strategy will be – how will you approach the new year ahead?
2. Share your own learnings when it comes to wellbeing and broaden your reach by using the hashtags: #WorksForWomenAB #BeBoldForChange
3. Connect with others in your network and encourage them to join our community and ask them to think about their own well-being strategy

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We hope you explore why mental health is such an important factor in your own success.
In closing, thank you again for helping to spark dialogue, build awareness, and inspire action. We are reminded that change does not happen overnight, but by uniting our community we can take direct action to impact change. On behalf of Works for Women, thank you for helping us drive change in Alberta.