Anton Kushner: how to enter 2021 with good mental health

2020 is best described by one indicator: the frequency of psychological consultations increased by 80%. Such an increase says one thing: more and more people realize that the support of a therapist is the norm, like going to the dentist.

Worried about relationships, not work

On the “I understand” platform, we regularly analyze the requests of employees of Russian companies for psychological support and often see interesting patterns. For example, in 2020, despite the pandemic, crisis, wars, job cuts and a generally unstable macroeconomic situation, the problems that worry people have remained the same.

The blue columns of the histogram are 5 consultations analyzed from January to October 2019, the pink ones are 18 consultations for the same period of 2020. Despite the fact that the total number of applications increased by more than 3,5 times, in percentage terms between blocks, almost complete parity was maintained.

In 2020, difficulties in the family ceased to be the main topic of appeals, giving way to partnerships between a man and a woman: they accounted for 17% of all consultations, while 14% of employees turned to family issues. Interest in the topic of relationships with parents has also noticeably decreased – from 5 to 2%, however, the number of consultations devoted to difficulties with children has increased from 4 to 7%.

Among individual personal issues, the topic of self-knowledge is still in the lead, interest in it has increased from 10 to 13%. Forced self-isolation and uncertainty in almost all areas of life contributed to an increase in the number of requests on the topic of anxiety and fear from 6 to 8%.

The block of work-related questions again showed the least interest from employees. Workplace stress has ceased to be the leader in terms of the number of requests in this block – self-realization issues have taken the first place, reaching a peak during quarantine: an increase from 10 to 13%. Relationships with colleagues improved, levels of emotional burnout and worries about a possible job loss decreased.

What to do?

The following recommendations will help managers to maintain a healthy psychological state in the team.

1. Share information with employees

The main thing that businesses need to understand is that the anxiety and fears of the staff in the vast majority of cases are not caused by negative events, but by how the company’s management reacts to them. The most correct option is to constantly broadcast to employees what is happening in the business, without trying to hide the processes that will affect them in any case. At least once every one or two weeks, it is necessary to arrange general meetings and share information with the team. If the company is going through hard times, this is especially important, since each employee must be aware of their place in the overall processes and understand how they will solve problems together with the team.

2. Start the concept of well-being

Most often, the term well-being is translated as “well-being”, but it would be even more accurate to call it a system of caring for the health of an employee: physical, mental and material. The following well-being products are the most popular in our country:

• physical health: discounts on fitness memberships, weight management programs, online health assessment;
• mental health: consultations of a full-time psychotherapist, support programs from online providers;
• material health: individual financial planning training, credit load optimization, loan refinancing, advice on tax deductions.

Often at HR conferences, representatives of the well-being direction talk about global strategies. Everything is great in them, but endless diagrams, tables and dozens of slides scare the HR directors, who later have to implement these solutions. Thoroughness is a great quality, but sometimes it’s better to start at least with something. Do not launch a corporate football team and training courses, while simultaneously looking for psychologists and nutritionists (nutrition experts), but make at least one webinar on vocational guidance for schoolchildren, if many employees now have this pressing problem. For business – a mere trifle, but for a person – it is very important.

3. Try not to get discouraged and do not bring others into it

Everything needs a middle ground: hiding difficulties from employees is as strategically wrong as complaining to them about every failure. I have seen cases where the entire working mood of the staff was disrupted by a single person – the leader. If you lack confidence in your decisions, it is better to turn to a simple rule: fake it till you make it (“fake it until you get your way.” – Trends). The main thing is not to sow uncertainty and negativity among subordinates. I would also recommend doing more frequent breathing exercises against stress, and even better, meditate.

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