Many workplace problems, such as bullying, work-life balance and workplace bias, come to mind. But there’s a lesser-known issue that deserves our attention right now: Mental health.
Remote employees often struggle with mental health issues, trigger by work and stress.
Employees can experience mental health problems for many reasons. It is your job as a manager to ensure that your employees are productive and engaged. It is possible to make this happen if you support your employees with workplace stress, mental health issues, and other workplace issues.
How can work monitoring tools help?
Lack of employer-trust can affect employees on top of their mental illness such as anxiety, depression or stress are very common.
Employee monitoring tools help build and maintain trust between employers and employees. It removes the room for errors and helps you acknowledge your employees time and effort. Both you and your team will be able to measure and improve work productivity.
Some employees may not be able to openly talk about mental health issues. Sometimes, as a manager you have to do more than just look for positive changes in your team members’ behaviour.
You can look out for signs such as irritability and depression, withdrawal from others, loss motivation, mood swings, or loss of motivation. These behaviours can be seen in your team members. This should prompt you to have a discussion about mental well-being.
Some employees have trouble maintaining a positive mental state. There are many reasons. One reason is that employees don’t openly talk about their mental health. People are often reluctant to openly discuss the mental problems they deal with every day.
Talk to your employees rather than making assumptions
It is best to have a discussion with your team member if you notice that they have changed their behaviour or are showing signs of mental illness. Don’t make assumptions about others before you have a conversation. Remember that opinions can change.
Talk to them in a safe place. Ask them questions and encourage them more to talk about what is triggering their problem.
Sometimes, all it takes is good listening to people with mental health issues.
Support employees with self-discovery
Talk to them, understand their needs and create an action plan to help them improve their mental health. Giving them the necessary support and guidance can help address the issues to great extent.
Many companies offer support and free sessions with therapists for employees who need it. Encourage your team member to seek therapy for improvement.
Keeping things confidential should be utmost priority.
People are afraid of being judged if they openly discuss their mental health problems in front of others. Although mental illness doesn’t make someone weak, it can affect how strong they are.
Keep in mind that sensitive information shared with you by your team members is confidential and that it is your responsibility keep it private. Make sure they know that your team member’s information is secure and that they can always count on you for assistance.
Benefits of monitoring employees
Spot the mistakes early
You can keep an eye on your employees throughout the day and spot any mistakes or errors that might occur in the workplace. You can immediately contact an employee who is making an error and ask them to fix it. You can also file the error in your employee notes, and bring it up at the next performance review meeting.
If used correctly, the monitoring system can also serve as a powerful evidence-gathering tool. The monitoring system can allow employees to see the errors they have made and help them make changes. This can be a great way to help them by telling them about the ways they could improve their performance.
A lot of organisations use employee monitoring software to tackle the challenges of modern workplace i.e., employee performance, mental well-being and overall business productivity.
Improve relationships with employees on personal level
You can improve your relationship with your employees by noting the mistakes they make.
An employee who is prone to pitying on an inept employee can lead to fear, clumsiness, and anxiety about making mistakes. This can reduce his productivity and lead to resentment among employees toward their supervisors.
Recognizing the benefits of monitoring performance
You can see the achievements of your employees and give them the opportunity to praise them and acknowledge them for their hard work. Employees will be more comfortable with the idea that they are being monitored if you can back up your recognition with evidence from the monitoring system. They will begin to see the benefits and accept it. This is one benefit of monitoring performance.
Employees will be more open to the possibility of being monitored if they accept it and can trust it. This will make them feel more at home and more in control.
Identify key strengths of employees
Employees want to learn what is wrong with them so they can improve and fix it. But they also want to see what is working well so they can continue doing it and get better at it. They need you to share their strengths.
You can monitor employees’ performance and capture snapshots of instances where they do more than is expected.
Prevent employees from over-working
Over-working employees is bad for your organization. They miss out on work-life balance and eventually get burned out. One of the main advantage of these monitoring tools is that they come with automated timesheets.
You can identify employees who are clocking more hours than they should and help balance work with other employees who’re slacking.
A balanced workload on all your team members will improve the positivity in your team, productivity in your projects and the profitability of your organization.