Mental health and mental illness often have a bad reputation. It leads to people not being able to work as hard as they or their employers might want and can lead to a lot of days off as they try to get the help they need.

Studies show that as many as one in five adults experience some form of mental illness. That means that about a fifth of your employees could potentially be experiencing some form of mental illness. This makes it important as an employer or manager to make sure that your team is getting the support and care they need. But what can you do? This article covers 3 ways you can support your employees and their mental health to make work more productive and your employees happier and healthier.

Model Healthy Work Practices

Many people get caught up in work. They work so hard that they burn out and end up becoming far less productive than if they had taken time for themselves. This may be especially true of your employees who may be experiencing some mental illness. You may notice they often work very hard for a while, and then their productivity drops, and this cycle can repeat.

To help prevent this, you want to model healthy workplace practices. Remind your workers about getting therapy when they need it, and set an example of taking walks during your break to refresh your mind. You never want to turn every problem into a discussion about youself, but doing a healthy amount of sharing can allow employees to realize what might help improve their health and productivity.

While you don’t have to preach about how you are taking steps to improve your mental health, you can mention it occasionally, and offer for your employees to talk a walk with you.

You can even turn it into a friendly challenge to see who can get the most steps during their breaks, or who can bring in the healthiest meal.

Build a Space Where Your Workers Can Share

For the most part, workers will keep their problems to themselves, or between other people on the same level as them. They may not feel comfortable telling their boss or their manager when they are having a bad mental health day, or they may try and push through the bad days and then suffer for it later in the week.

By sharing your own problems during the day, or by creating an environment where workers feel they can bring up their problems with you, you can create a team that feels more comfortable in their work environment. You may also find that you create a team that is willing to step in and support each other to keep productivity high.

To do this, you will have to work hard to show your concern for your team and make an effort to just sit and listen when they come to you with problems. It can be hard to be patient and calm, but by doing so, you can open yourself up to better understand employees and their daily struggles.

It should also go without saying that whatever your team tells you should always keep private. You shouldn’t ever hint at somebody having said something in confidence or what they might be going through. This will quickly cause your team to shut down and feel like they cannot talk with you.

If you are a boss of a large company, encourage your managers and shift leaders to do the same. While you work to support your managers and shift leaders, they can do the same for the teams below them. You may find you can adjust your expectations of your team to be more flexible without having to lower your standards or quality of work.

Create an Environment for Bonding

On TV, you often see a lot of complaints about team-building activities. After all, people have busy lives outside of work and don’t often want to spend their free days with their coworkers. However, you may be able to find a way for your team to bond and enjoy themselves without it being an inconvience for anyone.

There are a couple of options for this. You can make the bonding activity optional, so no one feels bad if they can’t or don’t want to make it. You can also take input from your team and offer suggestions. Don’t just do some cheesy team-building activity, but find something that everyone will like, such as smash rooms, escape rooms, or even a concert night.

If it is possible for your job, you can shut down your building for a day or maybe even a few days to have a team-building exercise on a day that your employees would normally work. You can do this once a year as a sort of thank-you to your employees. Plan for it in advance and shut down the business for a day or two like you would on holidays. Of course, this doesn’t work for everyone or every business but is a possibility for smaller companies.

If you live in a big city, like New Orleans, you can even hire a New Orleans chauffeur service to help drive your whole team around so parking doesn’t have to be an issue for your team.

This may seem like it is off-topic, but having positive experiences surrounding work can really help those with mental illnesses to feel better about work, and it will allow them to feel more comfortable so that they can share their concerns with you.