The emergence of smart digital solutions has been a huge boon for businesses, allowing them to address all aspects of employee wellness, whether physical, emotional, or mental, in a more humane manner. Read how does technology help mental health in the workplace.
As the workplace evolves, one of the most significant concerns for companies has emerged: managing employees’ mental health. Employees’ mental health concerns have increased as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, as they try to adjust to new habits and work practices.
Workplace absenteeism, presenteeism, and productivity loss are all signs of a mental health problem. According to the World Health Organization, depression, anxiety disorders, and other mental illnesses cost the world economy $1 trillion in lost productivity each year. However, mental health is a spectrum that ranges from healthiness to severe disease, including substance dependence, and even persons who don’t have a diagnosable mental illness can struggle due to stress, external factors, or other factors.
According to an Oracle study, roughly 84 per cent of employees have felt more anxiety and/or stress at work this year than in any previous year. While organizations seek efficient ways to address employee mental health and encourage wellness, technology has emerged as a positive influence, allowing workers to access a variety of tools and resources to relieve stress, blow off steam, and live healthier. According to a recent survey by WTW, focusing on well-being and health is a top concern for human resource managers, particularly in the aftermath of the epidemic. During the pandemic, it became clear to businesses that keeping employees healthy and safe should always be a top priority.
How Does Technology Help Mental Health in the Workplace?
Automation of Repetitive
Unnecessary workload has been shown to raise the pressure on workers, eventually leading to stress and burnout. Automation of repetitive work is decreasing the stress on staff, thanks to the growing popularity of AI solutions in businesses. Automation of duties such as responding to emails, filling out reports, and providing customer support frees up employees’ intellect, judgment, and emotional control.
Providing Therapeutic Value
Mental well-being Cognitive behavioural approaches are used by AI chatbots to provide behavioural change and cognitive insights. Sentiment analysis and natural language processing are used by some AI apps to evaluate employees’ inputs and provide personalized solutions. These programs use questions to analyze employees’ moods and ideas and then assist them to rethink their thinking patterns. Other artificial intelligence (AI) apps are being used by businesses to track how an employee’s mood changes over time. These chatbots can help employees harvest pleasant thought patterns by interacting with them.
Technology Help Mental Health by Recognising Emotion & Stress
Employers can easily monitor and analyze employee emotions and behaviour using new creative gadgets such as AI-based wearable solutions. These programs, which are equipped with picture and speech recognition, deep learning models, and language processing capabilities, can detect employees who are dealing with mental health concerns such as depression and anxiety, as well as those who are having difficulty with job responsibilities.
The applications’ voice recognition and machine learning algorithms assist track stress levels by recognizing the tempo and tone of employees. These AI-based systems can also analyze employees’ facial expressions to detect signs of burnout and provide stress-reduction messages.
Changing the Environment
According to studies, a good workspace arrangement or design can contribute to a more productive and less stressful environment. That is why modern-day businesses are increasingly attempting to improve office design by incorporating AI to alter ambient variables such as artificial lighting vs. natural light, plants, natural air, and so on, all of which can have a significant impact on employee mental health. An employee’s mood is analyzed using automated sensors and emotion recognition sensors, and it is then determined whether altering the environmental conditions will improve productivity and performance.
According to findings, innovative technology is playing an important role in resolving mental health challenges in the workplace. Employers who want to enhance their employees’ well-being should take advantage of the alternatives available and find appropriate examples to include in their larger wellness services and workplace support. Employers must clarify why digital alternatives are being introduced, how they function, and how they integrate into the organization’s overall strategies to encourage well-being at work in order to guarantee that they are appreciated and viewed as safe to use. Recognizing the performance and consistency of particular services, as well as how different tools compare on important criteria, is another big obstacle in introducing digital solutions.
For a long time, certain groups have been methodically addressing mental health issues. As Edward Thurman, director of group payments partnerships, says, a well-being program at Lloyds Banking Group is having a long-term impact: “Six years ago, we started encouraging colleagues to talk about mental health difficulties.” When given the chance, people quickly opened up and shared their stories. Today, the bank has over 2,100 staff who have been educated to have helpful talks with their coworkers and to refer them to professional treatment when they need it.”
The journey from one horizon to the next takes effort, but you can use grassroots energy to speed things up by implementing simple bottom-up initiatives like encouraging employees to communicate to one another about their mental health and well-being. You don’t have to do it alone: a group of companies just signed a leadership pledge to build a network to promote mental wellness in the workplace. Also, technology help mental health in the workplace to a greater extent.
