Emotional Wellness in the Workplace: Complete Guide
Emotional wellness in the workplace has become a greater topic of conversation in recent years. Leading their workforces through the pandemic brought conversations around mental health to the forefront of many organizational leadership discussions.
In fact, a 2021 report published in Mental Health America found that 83% of respondents felt emotionally drained from their jobs. Because of this, employee wellness programs have become a staple of many companies' employee experience as they take a more holistic approach to leadership.
Read on to gain a deeper understanding of how attuning to your employees' emotional needs can positively impact your business.
What is emotional wellness?
Emotional wellness refers to an individual's sense of resilience, ability to manage stress, and willingness to do the internal work necessary to create more positive feelings.
Emotional wellness at work has a few key components. Perhaps the most talked about is a sense of work-life balance: a feeling that an individual can handle their work responsibilities without them spilling over and affecting their home and personal life.
Work-life balance should also include strong boundaries between work and personal life. This is deeply tied to stress management and an employee's ability to self-regulate their emotions and co-regulate them with their teammates, navigating both celebration and conflict.
Another building block for emotional wellness in the workplace is quality support from colleagues and managers, which can create a strong foundation for an employee to thrive in their role. Coupled with timely, heartfelt recognition from leaders and peers, this can deepen an employee's sense of psychological safety and, ultimately, job satisfaction.
Why is emotional wellness in the workplace important?
When an employee has a strong sense of psychological safety, they are set up to succeed in their role. A deeper sense of emotional wellness can have a myriad of positive benefits for the organization as a whole, including:
- Increasing job satisfaction
- Amplifying employee engagement
- Motivating employees to pursue their career goals
- Improving productivity and performance
- Decreasing absenteeism
- Helping workers stay focused
- Slowing down rates of employee burnout
- Aiding in productive communication and conflict resolution
- Reducing levels of employee turnover
- Creating an overall sense of well-being
- Helping employees feel more confident in making decisions
- Strengthening relationships between employees, managers, and colleagues
In turn, refusing to address your employees' emotional wellness can have a negative effect on all these elements. Not only can that kind of damage and distrust erode your workplace culture, it can also cost you thousands in lost productivity and turnover costs.
What causes poor emotional wellness in the workplace?
A lack of employee wellbeing at a given company is often palpable. Employees who don't feel emotionally safe can be negative, unproductive, and lose their passion for the work they once deeply cared about. Some issues that can degrade emotional wellbeing in a workplace are:
Unhealthy work environment and culture
Coming into (or even logging onto) an unhealthy work environment can be a massive source of stress for an employee. Beyond the stress of being subjected to negative interpersonal interactions, heavy workloads, ever-shifting goals, or whatever is creating the toxic environment, these employees also have to face the anxiety of returning to this stress even when they aren't at work.
Because of this, work-related stress can seep into seemingly every area of life, causing deep, far-reaching emotional health struggles for employees.
Not only can this mounting discontent lead to a loss of productivity, but it can also cause employees to become angry, resentful, or lean on unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as substance abuse.
Negative or stressful interactions with coworkers and managers
We've all had that one manager who was committed to misunderstanding or talking down to us, or that co-worker who seemed to always be trying to throw us under the bus or pawn off work. It can feel terrible when an individual (or a small group) ruins the entire experience of a job.
Frequent negative interpersonal experiences can lead to increased stress levels and anxiety, decreased morale, and decreased engagement. Employees who are stuck navigating these negative workplace relationships may experience "The Sunday Scaries," come into the office feeling physically ill from nerves, find it hard to concentrate on work, or lose their passion for their positions altogether.
To combat these issues and foster a supportive, respectful work environment, leaders should prioritize open, productive communication. Conflict can often be resolved through honest communication between individuals, who may not have previously been aware of how their words or actions were being perceived by the other.
Encouraging these conversations can create a turning point as tensions mount. Conflict resolution training for both leaders and employees can also help your team avoid these issues, creating an emotionally safer space for your entire team.
Lack of supportive resources within the organization
Poor managerial support, underdeveloped teams, limited budgets, or any other lack of supportive resources can also contribute to an emotionally unhealthy work environment. Depending on their role in the organization, employees may hesitate to share their struggles with leaders out of fear that they'll be perceived as weak or unable to handle their responsibilities.
The stress of needing to "make things happen" with a poor supply of resources can create performance issues for once-productive employees. It can also cause their confidence and self-esteem to plummet as they internalize blame for not being able to "spin straw into gold."
What is the relationship between emotional wellbeing and mental health?
While they may seem synonymous, mental and emotional health are two separate but related concepts. Mental health refers to the more cognitive, logical side of things, whereas emotional health centers around regulating moods and feelings.
Mental health issues tend to be longer-standing, such as chronic anxiety and depression, while emotional health centers around the way negative feelings are triggered at the moment.
In the 2021 Mental Health at Work Report by Mind Share Partners, 76% of US employees reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition. Beyond that, 84% cited that issues in the workplace contributed negatively contributed to those conditions.
Because of this connection, it is extremely important to provide employees with mental health resources, such as lists of mental health professionals covered by the company's insurance. Offering support through natural, frequent conversations regarding mental health can help ensure that no employees feel isolated or alone. In fact, 81% of people report that they'll be seeking out jobs that provide mental health support in the future.
It's high time that employers started tending to their employees as people. It's not just the right thing to do as human beings, and it's also the right thing to do for any business. Ignoring employees' mental health in the workplace can result in productivity losses, a decrease in morale, higher turnover, and, ultimately, less profit.
How do you promote emotional wellness in the workplace?
Now that you understand the benefits of an emotionally healthy and safe workplace, it's time to take the next step toward creating that culture in your workplace. The lists below are non-exhaustive and may simply serve to spark your own creative solutions to support the emotional wellness of your employees.
Leadership initiatives for improved emotional wellness:
- Providing workplace support / human resources support
- Hosting regular one-on-one meetings between employees and managers
- Giving frequent, timely rewards and recognition
- Reassuring employees that they can ask for help when needed
- Improving communication and direction between employees
- Creating stress-management initiatives to support emotional wellness
- Encouraging employees to take time off of work, especially if they need sick days
- Hosting activities to promote emotional wellbeing
- Offering flexibility regarding remote work, if possible
- Facilitating seminars on the importance of strong mental health
Company-wide emotional wellness activities:
- Organizing company-wide meditation sessions
- Arranging low-pressure social events to help employees strengthen interpersonal relationships
- Bringing in meditation and mindfulness practices to support mental health
- Hosting in-office or virtual yoga classes or other wellness activities
- Offering free chair massages to ease stress
- Providing healthy catered meals to help employees eat better
- Encouraging fitness initiatives to improve physical health
- Having employees create vision boards for their personal and career goals
FAQs
What are the five types of wellbeing?
The five types of wellbeing are emotional wellbeing, physical wellbeing, social wellbeing, workplace wellbeing, and societal wellbeing. In order to feel a true sense of holistic wellness, individuals need to tend to all five of these areas.
When one is out of balance, it can affect the others, creating a negative domino effect. Ensuring that employees have a healthy, positive work environment can help keep these five pillars of health and wellbeing more in balance.
How does emotional wellness reduce work-related stress?
Feeling like your workplace is a secure environment to be a part of, whether in-person or virtually, is paramount to an employee's sense of emotional wellbeing both inside and outside the workplace.
Feeling supported, adequately resourced, and like it's safe to communicate, even when it's about conflict, can create a deep sense of emotional wellbeing at work. This, in turn, can have a massive effect on how they experience work-related stress, as it's likely that things will begin to feel much more manageable.
When is Emotional Wellness Month?
Emotional Wellness Month is celebrated every October. During this month, it's important for employers to promote self-care and social connectedness, and to ensure they're providing employees with the necessary resources to thrive.
Supporting well-being in the workplace can have a massive effect on employee emotional wellness and mental health outside the office, as well.
Conclusion
While it may seem outside the responsibilities of a leader, promoting emotional wellness in the workplace for all employees is the secret to creating a healthy culture. Investing in employees' holistic wellbeing can increase productivity, decrease levels of burnout, and create a happier workplace for everyone.
Employees who are happy to come to work are more engaged, communicate more effectively with their coworkers, and have a more positive attitude toward innovation and contributing to the company's overall mission.
Beyond those improvements, a psychologically safe work environment can have a positive impact on an employee's greater sense of wellness in their life overall.
About the author
Anna Picagli
As a CYT500 yoga instructor and a certified reiki practitioner, Anna is an advocate for holistic wellness, especially within the workplace.
She’s extremely passionate about the brain-body connection and exploring how mental and physical wellness intersect.
Anna has experienced firsthand how chronic stress, overworking, poor management, and other organizational issues can lead to extreme burnout. Knowing the impact that a toxic work environment can have on a person’s body, psyche, and general sense of well-being, she now works to direct others away from facing the same fate.
As Workhuman’s Content Marketing Senior Specialist, Anna is a regular contributor to Workhuman iQ reports and aims to create resources that company leaders can reference to help improve their culture and empower their employees, creating healthier workplaces for everyone.
In her free time, she’s a voracious reader and a seasoned home chef. You can learn more about Anna’s work on LinkedIn or through the Yoga Alliance.