Developing a healthy organisational culture to boost mental health

Employees battling stress and pressure is not a surprising event anymore. Most of the employees have something to confess regarding being anxious and feeling overwhelmed. Well, there are indeed some concerning stats around it. 

According to a study by the American Institute of Stress, 82% of workers feel stress at their workplace. And 25% have admitted to feeling like screaming or shouting due to excessive job stress. These numbers are scary. But, it's good to note that many organizations come up with new policies to take care of their employees’ mental health while not compromising on the work quality. 

There could be different reasons behind stress at work; the primary one having an unhealthy work culture. Abusive authority, unnecessary office gossip, competing employees, and lack of vision are some major reasons contributing to a toxic work culture.

As an employer or manager, I'm sure you'd love to keep your employees mentally happy because they are performing their best for the company. To keep up with the goal, it's important to cultivate a healthy organisational culture. How? That's what I will guide you through here.

Why is a healthy organisational culture important? 

There are numerous reasons why a healthy organizational culture keeps a workplace happy and boosts the overall mental health of the employees. Let's take a sneak peek into it. 

Your employees turn into family members: Handsome salary and solid benefits are cool. But most employees want something more. Nothing materialistic but they look for an emotional connection. They want to feel belong and want to know their hard work matters to the company. 

A healthy organizational structure is about appreciating your employees and giving them constructive feedback when needed. It is about letting them know their actions matter. That's how they turn up to be a family member. 

Your employees become a good team. 

One of the other benefits of a healthy organizational structure is the immense power to combine your best employees into an incredible team. Having the skill to work independently is great but delivering quality output to put a broad smile on the client's face is teamwork, isn't it? 

Most importantly, when you have an incredible team, the workload can be eased. That helps reduce a lot of stress. 

A healthy culture keeps up your company value. 

A recent study shows a healthy company culture is essential in maintaining the right balance between your employees’ emotional wellbeing and overall performance. When your workers are mentally charged up, there's hardly anything that could stop you from attaining success with long contracts and investors, isn't it?

Moreover, your company culture reflects the core values of your firm. This organization has a vision and a poor culture inside the workplace will only contradict that. I'm sure you won't want the reputation to be tarnished due to a not-so-healthy decorum in the office!

How to maintain a healthy organizational culture to boost mental health? 

How do you instil a high culture in your company that ensures employee satisfaction? Well, the following points can be of great help. 

Encourage positive interactions among employees: The core step in creating a high-value company culture is encouraging positive interactions and smooth communication among employees. That helps to form a bond and keeps the queues away for office gossip. 

Communication is a two-way thing; as the authority, you need to be an active communicator about the project expectations, deadlines, weekend shifts etc. This reduces a lot of confusion and employees are likely to feel less burdened. 

Lead by example: As the manager project lead or supervisor, it's your responsibility too to set a vivid example in front of their eyes. Your qualities like kindness, empathy, and passion to deliver quality work, instil the same values among your employees. 

If they see their authority to be rude, bossy, or aimless, they're likely to follow the same footprints. Moreover, that will increase the chances of employee burnout because they will have zero clue about the work, project needs, expectations and so on. 

Ensure a balanced workload: Of course, the workers have to put in their best work. However, assigning them vague timelines like finishing up a presentation in 30 minutes, or working consecutive weekend shifts, can lead to their cause of stress. 

That's why you need to ensure the workload distribution is even among employees. 

If one of got workers is working this weekend, it's expected someone will replace them in the next one. If someone has worked extra hours the previous evening, they should get a half-day leave the next day. 

See, these are all little steps that contribute to a bigger goal: a healthy organizational culture that not only strives to deliver the best work but also ensures to look after their employees' mental health with a positive work environment. 

Wrapping up 

With that, we conclude our discussion on the possible ways you could convert your workplace to a high-value environment. As the authority, you must not tolerate any kind of nuisance from your employees. True. 

At the same time, you need to take care if the people putting their 100% into your organization are emotionally happy if they're feeling stressed out or disappointed. Because, if they are, that's likely to reflect on the work. 

Your company culture defines the vision and core values of your firm. You can't let it wash away with a toxic environment built inside, can you? 

FAQs

Why is a healthy organizational culture important?

Ans. A healthy organizational culture is important because it keeps the workplace free from hypocrisies and develops an amazing environment for hardworking employees. 

How to build a good company culture?

Ans. The steps to build a great company culture include: great leadership, proactive communication, recognising the efforts of the employees, even work distribution and thriving to deliver the best output. 

Is employee mental health related to workplace culture? 

Ans. Yes, the office culture can have a direct influence on the employees’ mental health. A positive environment is indicative of less stress while a toxic environment promotes anxiety and pressure.