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An Empathy and Science-Based Playbook to Wellbeing during a Pandemic
An Empathy and Science-Based Playbook to Wellbeing in a Pandemic
By: Tara Davis American Psychological Association
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The COVID-19 pandemic has invaded every aspect of our lives, leaving no space unscathed. More than a year and a half into this pandemic, we are still feeling the effects and our mental health is suffering the consequences. In March, APA’s Stress in America™ poll ( https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress) found that 84 percent of adults report feeling at least one emotion associated with prolonged stress (e.g., anxiety, sadness, anger). The prolonged stress is showing up via undesired weight changes, sleeping disruptions, and increased alcohol usage, as we try to cope with this unprecedented time. The most recent Stress in America survey (https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2021/octoberdecision-making ) found that one in three Americans are sometimes so stressed about the coronavirus pandemic that they struggle to make even basic decisions (e.g., what to wear, what to eat, etc.).
On top of the mental health pandemic sweeping the nation, specific groups of people are more susceptible to the effects—parents (especially those whose children are virtual learning), essential workers, people of color, and Gen Z adults. Half of parents said the level of stress in their life has increased compared with before the pandemic. Black Americans are facing additional layers of racial trauma in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many other Black Americans in the past year, along with the disproportionate toll of the pandemic and economic downturn.
While we face the highest documented levels of stress in history, we continue working, if we are lucky. The workplace was not spared from the pandemic’s implications. Nearly 83% of employees surveyed by Mental Health America in 2021 (https://mhanational. org/research-reports/2021-mind-workplace-report) reported feeling emotionally drained from work and were experiencing early signs of burnout. While a focus on employee wellbeing may have been considered a nice-to-have in the past, it is now a requirement for organizational stability with the mental health of so many Americans deteriorating or at risk.
What might it look like to create a mental health friendly workplace, particularly during a pandemic and when the workplace looks very different from how it used to? First, it is important to remember that context and culture are key. You can’t just take what works for another organization or what worked for your organization a year ago and expect employees to be receptive. Consider the culture of your organization—what do your employees really need right now, this week? Think about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs—what must first occur for your employees to even begin to think about their work? Which employees are facing additional layers of stress and how can you support them?
Research shows that a psychologically healthy workplace fosters employee health and wellbeing while also enhancing organizational performance. APA’s psychologically healthy workplace model, established long before the pandemic, has five domains of sciencebased workplace practices that correlate with a healthy work environment: employee involvement, health and safety, work-life integration, employee recognition, and employee growth and development. The foundation of the five domains is communication,
which is currently a catch-22. As the science shows we must be physically distant to safeguard our health but socially connected to protect our wellbeing. While it’s no surprise the benefits of psychologically healthy workplace practices to an employee are many—improved mental and physical health, reduced stress, improved sleep, and more stamina, to name a few—the benefits to an employer are monumental, including lower health care costs, reduced presenteeism and absenteeism, improved customer satisfaction, and greater employee satisfaction and retention.
Let’s dig a little deeper into the five domains and give a few tangible examples.
Employee involvement is described as fostering creativity and autonomy of employees and encouraging involvement in organizational decision-making. APA has instituted biweekly virtual coffee breaks with the CEO, where employees are given the opportunity to share feedback, comments, and ideas to better the organization--directly with our CEO. Another idea is to invite employees to audition for the role of emcee of your all-staff meeting, instead of defaulting to the CEO or senior leaders.
Employee recognition includes both monetary and non-monetary awards in response to significant achievements; it can be formal or informal, but it’s most impactful when it’s personal, timely, specific, and performance based. It’s important to ask your employees HOW they like to be recognized—it could be through a public award, a thank you video from their chain of command (we use Gratavid), sending treats you know they personally love, giving flexible work hours, or assigning them more work they are passionate about.
employees to expand their knowledge, skills and abilities, and apply competences they have gained to new situations. For many, this means training and paid professional development classes. While those are certainly important for growing and retaining talent, investing in your employees doesn’t have to cost anything. One concrete and meaningful way to exercise this domain is to connect the dots for staff between their work and the organization’s overall impact. Why does the work they do matter? You can also assign leadership roles to help individuals grow professionally and personally.
In terms of health and safety, it’s critical to note that health is more than just the physical. Our health and wellbeing is also made up of mental, emotional, social, occupational, and economic components (some organizations would argue there are even more facets). There are ways to nourish these different components of wellbeing and it’s important to remember that different people may need help with different aspects of their wellbeing at different times. A critical piece is to keep the communication channels open—be available, ask people how they are really doing (and actually wait to hear their response), and provide wellbeing resources whenever possible. Most workplaces have an employee assistance program, through which employees can access mental health professionals for free or at a low cost. We need leaders to model the importance of using mental health services and try to remove the stigma around accessing care. There needs to be a paradigm shift around mental health. We don’t go to the doctor only when things are wrong physically—we go for an annual physical to help us perform at our best and get ahead of any issues that could be building up. We should treat mental health the same way as our physical health—besides, the mind and body are connected. APA has a fantastic public resource for all sorts of mental health topics including anger, stress, racial trauma, and effects of COVID-19. (https://www.apa.org/topics ) You can search for a psychologist using this locator (https://locator.apa.org/) and here are important questions to consider when looking for a mental health service provider.
Work-life integration practices acknowledge that employees have responsibilities and lives outside of work and help individuals better manage these multiple, often conflicting demands. With our new world of virtual or hybrid work, there’s no separation between work and life. You can best support others by seeing them as humans first. . .then as producers, property managers or tenants. We are all juggling many roles in a world we are unaccustomed to, so we must show each other grace—assume the best of people and have empathy for whatever hardships they may be going through. A few work-life integration practices APA has instilled include: supporting employees in establishing their home offices, avoiding scheduling meetings during the lunch hour, creating forums for staff to process major societal events such as racial violence, making more meetings video-optional (https://on.today.com/37OutuB), creating a virtual break room with employee-created channels, and communicating trust by providing flexibility with when/how employees work.
Science says uncertainty is not good for our wellbeing—a major reason why this unprecedented pandemic has been so difficult for us. The August 2021 Stress in America survey (https://www.apa.org/ news/press/releases/stress/2021/october-decision-making) found that nearly two-thirds of adults agreed that uncertainty about what the next few months will be like causes them stress, and around half went further to say that the coronavirus pandemic makes planning for their future feel impossible. Senior management, team leaders, and property managers are encouraged to provide as much certainty as possible for their employees or tenants in terms of communicating future plans for return to work or building changes, policy updates, and other decisions that impact people daily. It’s imperative to provide top-down communications which make employees or tenants aware of key organizational values and decisions, but just as important is opportunities for bottom-up communication through which employees
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Now that we’ve talked about how to create psychologically healthy environments for our employees or tenants, it’s time to face inward. As individuals, even in an uncertain pandemic, there are things in our control. Psychologists define resilience as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress. Becoming more resilient not only helps you get through difficult life circumstances, it also empowers you to grow and live a more fulfilling life. While certain circumstances or life experiences could make some individuals more resilient than others, resilience isn’t a set personality trait that only some people possess. Instead, resilience consists of behaviors, thoughts, and actions that anyone can learn and grow. Four science-based ways of building resilience are: forming connections, fostering wellness, embracing healthy thinking, and finding meaning. Forming social connections is actually one of our biggest protective factors for facing adversity—and one Harvard study suggests it’s what determines how long we live.( https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_ waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_ on_happiness?referrer=playlist-the_most_transformative_ted_talks) While it’s certainly not easy during a pandemic, we must be creative and pursue quality (not quantity) relationships.
Another important piece to building resilience is fostering your wellness. Even replacing two minutes of sitting with walking each hour can have major health effects.(https://www.webmd.com/ fitness-exercise/news/20150430/2-minutewalk-every-hour-may-help-offset-effects-ofsitting#1) Other ways include protecting your sleep, establishing routines (knowing that they may change), getting your mental health checkup, and practicing mindfulness. A quick note on mindfulness—it’s not about quieting your thoughts. It’s about living moments intentionally rather than on autopilot. You can practice it formally or informally and there are many health benefits. (https://www. apa.org/monitor/2012/07-08/ce-corner)
Finding meaning in what we do, in our daily lives, in the ways we connect with others and our surroundings is another strategy to build resilience. Some tangible, science-based ways include helping others, connecting with nature and seeking awe, setting daily intentions, and finding opportunities for self-discovery and growth. So, there’s a reason we all learned how to make bread during the pandemic!
A final component to building resilience involves
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embracing healthy thoughts. It’s important,
especially during a pandemic, to realize when reading social media or news posts is deteriorating your mental health and you need to take a break. There are many health benefits to gratitude (https:// bit.ly/3wxcgv0), and you can cultivate it by writing down three positive things that happen to you each day. It’s also healthy to experiment with “both-and” thinking—as our friends from the movie Inside Out taught us. It’s perfectly healthy to experience multiple emotions at the same time. Finally, avoid toxic positivity by acknowledging how you are truly feeling and try to be okay with not being okay Not every day is going to be a 10/10—give yourself the gift of self-compassion. (https://www.apa.org/ monitor/2016/09/ce-corner)
About the Author
Tara Davis is director of internal communications and staff wellbeing and engagement at the American Psychological Association. In this role, she strategically produces communications, programs, and activities that energize employees.
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