Mental Health and Well-Being Amid a Global Pandemic
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Session Summary
Creating a culture of care within the workplace has never been more essential than now. By recognizing that our physical experiences can influence our emotions and behaviors, organization leaders must embody a sense of self-awareness in order to instill the proper work culture for all to feel comfortable and succeed as individuals and affiliates. Concerns about mental health, well-being, and stress in the workplace are nothing new. But without a doubt, things have become much, much harder given the pandemic. This weighty yet necessary dialogue centers around supporting the pre-existing and evolved needs of people, regardless of their industry, demographic, orientation, or ability. Observably to Joann Lee Wagner, Vice President of People Operations of Common Future, this can be demonstrated by businesses “seeking the long-term sustainability of people alongside the communities that [they] support.”
Foundation for the conversation begins with references to a remote work report from Project Include, an organization whose mission is to give everyone a fair chance to succeed in tech. In a survey with responses from over 3,000 tech companies, remote work since COVID-19 has exacerbated harm, harassment, and hostility. Harmful work experiences and anxiety have all increased among Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American Pacific Islander, women, non-binary, transgender, and those over 50. Director of the Cultural Leadership Program at Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity Diane Ragsdale leads the conversation stressing how imperative it is that all businesses make well-being and mental health a top priority and to do so now before it’s too late. Home used to be the safe space to escape from work, but now given the influx of work-from-home, reports now show that harassment and hostility have moved from physical/in-person to online/remote work, taking the form of “public bullying attacks on group video calls to berating 1:1 over email to racist and sexist link-sharing in chat and more” (Project Include, 2021).
Solutions for planting seeds of personal and professional well-being, growth, and prosperity begin through a sincere attempt to deeply understand who we each are as individuals, co-workers, peers, leaders, collaborators, and co-citizens in our respective communities. The importance of community for example, is demonstrated when experiences of any degree are translated across multiple demographics and populations, as shared by writer and art curator Sophia Park. Activating a heightened level of awareness in leadership allows us to acknowledge that what's happening in the world affects employees at varying personal levels.
Recognition of the emotional labor that multicultural and marginalized people are disproportionately burdened is the first step towards ensuring that work is not retraumatizing its workers. These emotive, organizational values can then be matched with action through the development and installation of practices and policies to provide the varying degrees of support humans honestly need right now. From trauma, grief, homeschooling and child care, to counseling, harassment, hostility and everything in between, human resources needs to underscore each word independently to accentuate the bond between them to begin moving with empathy. Panelists share valuable stories and credible insight around practical ways companies can be more empathic and responsive to employees, including with simple-yet-extraordinary gestures such as offering time off when a manager is able to identify an employee who could be potentially affected by something occurring. And as highlighted by award winning dancer artist Shannon Litzenberger, caring for employees means creating a work culture that is rooted in care to encourage leaders to recognize that embodied self-awareness and behavior are important seeds to prosperous growth.
