What is this about?

This edition of Connections provides a very useful summary infographic on the effects of COVID-19 on the mental health of American workers.  It comes from a think tank funded primarily by the Blues. (NIHCM) The data insights provided in this infographic give tangible evidence for addressing more of the mental health and mental well-being needs of our working populations and can be used to make a stronger case for expansion of employer wellness efforts. This infographic also provides a number of practical suggestions on how our employee wellness programming can be modified to better address these growing needs.

Why is this important?

The significantly increasing mental health needs of our working population due to COVID really needs to be addressed by our wellness programming efforts.  This means that mental health and mental well-being related issues, such as:  depression, discouragement, emotional burnout, chronic excess stress, anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, fitful sleep or sleeplessness, fatigue, lowered resilience and presenteeism have been intensifying since early Spring of this year and our wellness efforts now need to more completely address these issues.  We need to adjust our behavioral and psychological targeting of our programming and design more interventions that are effective in minimizing these problems for employees and their family members.

The ability to address more of these mental health and mental well-being issues is important for four distinct reasons.  First, these mental health and mental well-being issues can act to significantly reduce employee productivity if they are not addressed.  Second, these issues can lead to more serious diseases and conditions including accidents that have both severe human and economic consequences for employers.  Some of the ways mental health and mental well-being issues show up include suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, homicide, homelessness, domestic violence, loneliness, sexual addictions, withdrawal from social life, family dysfunction and abuse. The third reason it’s important is that these mental issues, if left unaddressed are likely to seriously undermine our efforts to find an acceptable “new normal” for business and organizational operations that is sustainable in post-COVID work environments.  Finally, the fourth reason I believe this is important is that these types of issues may well act to obviate personal concern for many of the other related wellness issues, such as, nutrition choices, weight gain, sedentarism, sleep disruptions, apathy, use of preventive sevices and receiving social support.  I am afraid if we are not careful in addressing these mental health and mental well-being issues now we may find ourselves facing even higher percentages of unmotivated and apathetic employees about their personal health and well-being.

What can you do with this document?

• First, download and read the infographic document to get a sense of the magnitude of the recent deterioration of mental health and well-being status and the recommended steps employers can take.
• Explore with your health plan(s) wellness staff what services or help they can provide.
• Next, develop a set of possible program targets and interventions to address these needs.
• Next, determine who should receive the infographic along with a set of your recommendations for modifying your employee wellness program in this or the next planning/programming cycle.
• Then, determine which mental health and mental well-being targets the program should address and the companion interventions you are recommending.
• Then, don’t do too much but what you do, do well!
• Then, plan your evaluation for how you are going to measure the mental health and mental well-being effects of these wellness interventions.
• Then, carry out the evaluation plan and report back to senior management on the amount of programming activity conducted, number of participants and any survey or collateral data sources you have planned to use.
• Finally, propose additional activities for the next program cycle.

In summary, this infographic document provides an overview of the emerging mental health and mental well-being needs of U.S. employees associated with COVID-19 along with a variety of useful suggestions for programming. For a number of important reasons, it is probably best that we begin to systematically address these targets and corresponding interventions with our employees and their family members.