💌 Workplace Mental Health: A Guide For Managers | Oyster Mail May Edition

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Hi folks, did you know there’s a high chance your employees aren’t okay? 👀

In this issue, you’ll find:

• 📚 A course on work-life balance to share with your team 
• 🎧 Our podcast episode about how to prevent burnout
• 📖 A guide to set up better meetings and avoid Zoom fatigue

With 77% of employees (probably including yourself) feeling burnout, we wanted to dedicate this month’s issue to burnout and mental health awareness at work. Though common in our current work culture, if not addressed, burnout can make people feel anxious, disengaged, and discouraged 😪

With increasing stress in the workplace, being a manager today is more difficult than ever. Employees look for support from their managers, but only 24% of People leaders feel equipped to help.

Talking about mental health at work shouldn’t be hard — not when you have the necessary resources.

Here are the tactical tips for supporting employee mental health and cultivating healthy workplaces for happy and high-performing teams.

Let’s get into it 💌

Don't forget to subscribe here to get invitations to exclusive events on managing your remote and hybrid teams 💌

Best Practices for Promoting Mental Wellbeing at Work

⚖️ Back to school! A course on creating a healthy work-life balance for you and your team

Catching your employees online on Slack or responding to your emails outside working hours?

When we work from home, it can be easy to pull out our laptops and send that late-night email instead of relaxing and recharging. Before we know it, we’re feeling overworked, and like we’ve lost our motivation and engagement.

Some practical tips can help improve your work-life balance. From creating mindful routines to planning fun activities in between, our course covers everything to help your employees clock off after work working hours.

Ready to create a healthy workplace? Share our Oyster’s “Avoid burnout as a remote worker” course with your team for best practices. | Enroll Here

😪 Spot the early signs of burnout to avoid it

An unmanageable workload and stress push employees to look for other jobs, leading to employee turnover, low retention, and more hiring costs for companies.

By spotting the early burnout signs and taking action, you can avoid burnout and keep those great employees on your team. Although the signs can vary for everyone, here are some common ones to keep in mind:

• Cynicism: if your employees feel insecure about their responsibilities and show abnormal cynicism, it’s a sign that they may be detaching from work. Coach them to learn how you can support them during tough times.
• Fatigue: I wish it wasn’t true, but we all show the signs of exhaustion. If your employees look exhausted and irritated often, the constant work stress might be blocking them from restful weekends. Advocate for taking regular PTOs for mental health.
• Low performance: dips in performance and creativity? The higher the burnout level is, the lower the productivity and creativity. Encourage them to talk about their workload and delegate them.

If you want to learn more about how to combat burnout as a manager, listen to our podcast with the co-founder of Kona, Yen Tan. Tune into our insightful conversation on stress and burnout in the workplace. | Listen Here

💻 Avoid the meeting overload

Zoom fatigue is real! Although meetings are an important part of hybrid and remote companies, 71% of them are considered unproductive. Yikes.

How can you fix it? Encourage your team to be intentional about setting meetings and preparing an agenda beforehand.

If you realize the meeting isn’t necessary, send it as an email. Document everything and collaborate async whenever you can.

Check out Oyster’s guide on how to schedule effective meetings for distributed teams. | Read Your Guide

UPCOMING EVENTS 🗓

Let’s Talk: Remote Hiring

June 12, 11am PST | 1pm CDT | 2pm EST

Remote work is here to stay, but do you have the best practices to hire remotely? Join the discussion with Teamtailor as we delve into the challenges and opportunities of remote hiring. You’ll gain valuable insights into remote recruitment strategies and discover best practices to streamline your hiring process. | Register Here

Pando Horizons

June 18-19, 8am -1pm PST | 11am-4pm EST

Looking for expert discussions about the hot topics of HR? Then you’re in luck! From creating a culture of high performance, and navigating AI, to thriving through changes and challenges, we’ll cover everything to support and empower you. Get ready to meet people leadership across HR, primarily CPOs, Heads of, and Directors of People as we get insights from a 12-session event. | Register Here

That’s all, folks!

As managers, we all want to take care of our teams and build supportive workplace environments where employees can thrive. No workplace is perfect, and we’re all learning as we go. But with these tips in your pocket, you’ll hopefully have some strategies for tackling burnout and stress for yourself and your teams.

Until next month,

Oyster