Employee mental health is a vital concern in the workplace today and impacts the business setting, and of course, the course towards business objectives. Meanwhile, one-third of UK employees are struggling to receive help from HR about their issues. You want to escape this figure by making sure more employees in your organisation’s trust your HR to help.
COVID hit resoundingly and with employees thinking it is difficult to receive help from your HR team, it negatively affects their wellbeing, which reflects in productivity. As for HR, however, you can leverage HR software to gauge employee satisfaction, ensure better people processes and champion diversity to ensure healthy employee mental health. At the same time deploying employee feedback software can help identify opportunities for improvement across the whole organisation.
The mental health concern is becoming extremely critical post-covid, and since trust factors in the state of your employee’s wellbeing, Cezanne HR is releasing their recent survey about trust in HR to uncover the different HR actions detrimental to employee wellbeing and satisfaction.
The Struggle to Receive Help From HR Departments Could Affect Productivity
The survey shows 33% (about 1 in 3) of your employees could be struggling to get help from your HR or think it is nearly impossible. Perhaps, HR teams are being grateful for the relief it brings them when employees do not budge them. Unfortunately, the behind-the-scenes reaction of that particular employee points to poor mental health.
Mental safety drives engagement at the workplace, and in its absence, you are left with managing employees who feel stressed and faster burnouts. Already, the survey shows high trust can attract 74% and 40% and less stress and fewer burnouts respectively. Burnout is work-related stress and not a medical diagnosis. It hampers employee productivity as a result of their physical and emotional exhaustion pointing to HR attitude.
Based on conflict, it can be expressed in many ways, including bullying, non-corporation, insults and anger. This brings about a communication gap, often resulting in the inefficiency of employee teamwork, and segregation.
Unfortunately, 47% of UK employees are not sure or would not trust HR departments to help them manage conflict in the organisation. Organisational politics is an aspect that can sometimes lead to conflict arising due to challenges about certain aspects such as colleagues thinking that their team member is not being productive or that they might feel that they’ve been overlooked for a promotion opportunity where that job has been given to someone else less worthy.
48% of UK respondents declared they are not sure or trust their HR teams to make them aware of internal promotion opportunities. The consequence of this deficit is that employees slip into feeling insecure in their job. It affects their self-esteem and forces a feeling of distress, making the employee feel ineffective when handling tasks.
Regarding employee privacy and confidentiality, employees want to be sure that their personal information is safeguarded and protected. An employee might have disclosed their HIV/AIDS status to the company and expects that only the management is aware.
It goes a long way to promote their confidence in HR. But where this security trust is missing, an employee feels insecure. Already, 31% (nearly one-third) of employees stated that they may not trust HR to respect their privacy and confidentiality. They will become stigmatised at work and likely suffer discrimination that damages their mental health.
Lack of Trust for HR: Impartiality and Favouritism Can Be So Detrimental
Impartiality and favouritism can be the skin worm eating up employee trust for the HR team. Less than 50% of the survey’s respondents believe the HR team to act impartially, however, only 12% think HR is impartial to junior staff.
When asked about senior staff, 43% of the respondents believe HR to be impartial. This suggests an unlevel playground where employees could be treated unequally, and HR must get rid of it.
When an employee is excluded, social neuroscience studies show similar areas of the brain are affected when people experience physical and social pain. In this regard, your employee experiences not just physical pain but also reacts to the toxicity of being treated unfairly. Over time, this experience affects the employee.
An employee who feels unfairly treated will become demotivated, which affects their performance at work. In extreme cases, such employees develop a sense of incompetence, lose their spark, and are no longer reliable for specific tasks. Unfortunately, your employee may not voice their concerns and this problem eats deeper and damages their morale, engagement and cooperativeness.
Impactful HR Attitudes that Can Protect Employee Mental Health
Trust at the workplace fosters a healthy relationship and drives empathy and understanding. Fairness spearheads effective communication and inclusivity and lets you champion diversity smoothly.
First, transparency can go a long way: complaints transparency and openness get all levels of employees involved and trustworthy. It eliminates employee feeling of overt favouritism and implies the HR is not being protective of senior staff and possible toxic attitude at work. Transparency also encourages accountability, preserves the workplace culture and of course, improves trust.
Be attentive to conversations, provide employee feedback channels and find out why employees are silent. Inquire into why your team could be underperforming and set the example. Finally, you want to establish a work culture that encourages employees to speak to protect their psychological space.
Find out about their conflicts, concerns and challenges and resolve them. Do not fail to encourage employees to be innovative, reward excellence and win trust in the area of privacy and confidentiality.