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Encourage activities like walking meetings or lunchtime stretches. Regular physical activity improves mood, energy levels, and cognitive function.
One of the most overlooked jobs in terms of stress levels is the role of a people manager. In addition to being responsible for your own own productivity, you are looking after the productivity of a unit, and the diverse team members that comprise it.
As such, it is important to keep your your headspace positive in order to be a role model for your team.
Here are seven things that you can follow, or encourage your teams to follow, in order to maintain mental health and wellbeing at work:
1. Encourage regular exercise
Regular physical activity improves mood, energy levels, and cognitive function. Encourage activities like walking meetings or lunchtime stretches. For example, a study by the CDC found that just 30 minutes of moderate exercise five times a week can reduce stress and increase productivity.
2. Ensure employees don’t sit at their desks for too long
Prolonged sitting can lead to health issues like back pain, headaches, and poor circulation. Encourage the use of reminders for hourly stretch breaks or to use the time to refill their water bottles. The Mayo Clinic suggests that standing for just 15 minutes every hour can reduce fatigue and improve focus.
3. Encourage quitting unhealthy habits
Promote wellness initiatives that help employees quit unhealthy habits such as excessive time on social media, stress-related snacking, or smoking. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported that workplaces supporting healthy habits can see a 25% reduction in absenteeism.
4. Ask people to open up to their line manager
Open communication with managers creates a healthy working environment, and fosters empathy. Oral communication often trumps written communication in an era where attention spans are getting shorter, so face-to-face catchups are worth spending time on. A Gallup study showed that employees who have regular conversations with their manager are three times more engaged at work.
5. Set up routine catch-ups with the team
Regular team meetings build cohesion, clarify expectations, and support collaboration. These can be in the form of weekly one-on-one meetings, daily check-ins or monthly reviews. Companies practicing routine team check-ins report a 20% boost in project efficiency, as noted by McKinsey & Co.
6. Set up team lunches once a month or quarter
Allowing dedicated time to lunch together helps a team bond and get to know each other better, outside of work responsibilities. Talking things out in informal settings often creates a feeling of psychological safety for both managers and their staff to be on the same page, or to understand each other better.
7. Push people to take their annual leave - in a planned manner
Your star employees are recognised as such for a reason - they value their work and contribution to the business, but also because they maintain an active and fulfilling lifestyle outside of work, which makes them holistic role models. Encourage your top talent to take their full annual leave entitlement to recharge and refresh, and work with them to ensure clashing leave dates don't leave the rest of the team with an inordinate workload.
ALSO READ: The friendship factor: How workplace friendships impact employees’ mental health and wellbeing
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