As the transition to work-from-home continues, companies are finding new ways to check in with their employees and their mental health status. Bonfyre CEO Mark Sawyier shares his perspective on emotional tracking tools and their future in the workplace.
It’s no secret that more people than ever are struggling with emotional and mental health issues because of COVID-19. In just three months, the prevalence of anxiety more than tripled while depressive disorder nearly quadrupled compared to a year ago.
With 78% of the workforce reporting a negative impact from COVID-19 on their mental health, it’s no wonder companies are concerned about their employees and how this might affect their business. Even before the pandemic, mental health disorders were expected to cost $16 trillionOpens a new window globally by 2030, mostly in lost productivity.
With the sudden leap to remote work, the stakes are even higher. Employees are putting in more hours, feeling burned out, isolated, anxious, and depressed at an unprecedented rate.
Recognizing the issue, many companies are adopting emotional tracking and monitoring technologyOpens a new window . From surveys designed to take employees’ pulse on mental well-being to add-ins that analyze Slack conversationsOpens a new window to monitor for morale and mood, there’s no shortage of tools available, many of them intended to live within productivity tools employees are already using daily. Even the latest Microsoft Teams updateOpens a new window added “emotional check-ins†aimed at giving employers insight into how employees are feeling.
Learn More: With or Without a Global Pandemic, Prioritize Employee Mental Health
Emotional Tracking Is Great: But Is It Serving Your Purpose?
While it’s fantastic that companies are making employee well-being a top priority, companies should consider some important factors when implementing these tracking tools.
1. Is your approach transparent?
Be upfront about your methods and your intent with the data you’ll collect.
First, make sure employees are aware they’re being monitored. Of course, surveys make this obvious, but tracking for mood covertly within productivity tools and then reaching out to individuals with concerns can make employees feel very uncomfortable.
Second, explain what you’ll do with this data, and perhaps more importantly, what you won’t do. Employees may be reluctant to honestly report their mental state for fear of being deemed unproductive. Embedding emotional tracking within productivity tools only exacerbates that connection, and employees may be hesitant to offer authentic feedback. Be clear about your intentions and the fact that this isn’t a performance reviewOpens a new window .
2. Is how you’re assessing emotional health contributing to the issue?
With employee burnout on the rise and work-life balance suffering, asking employees to report emotional health in a productivity tool effectively requires them to spend more time in those tools, contributing to burnout. If you’ve just spent 9 hours on Teams or Zoom calls, being asked to take a pulse survey in Teams before logging off may be the “straw that breaks the camel’s back.â€
It’s also likely not placing the employee in the best frame of mind to report on their current state.
Thinking back to how we’d commonly approach emotional check-ins pre-pandemic, we’d do things like meet with an employee over coffee or lunch, getting them outside the space where they do their work to support a better conversation. Companies must figure out how to replicate this separation digitally, ideally with communication platforms designed to nurture employee relationships.
Learn More: 8 Workplace Wellness Statistics Every HR Pro Should Know
3. Are there mechanisms to take action?
Gathering data about employees’ mental well-being isn’t helpful if you have no plan or effective mechanism to intervene based on the results. Not only does merely collecting the data offer no benefit, but it also sends a message to employees that you care but not enough to do anything about it.
While productivity tools might surface resources or guides to address emotional well-being when their tools detect an issue, naturally, this would point employees back toward using that tool, potentially contributing to employee burnout. Not to mention, when a manager gets tracking results, there’s often no inherent way to address issues and no accountability to make sure something was actually done. In fact, we’ve been measuring engagementOpens a new window and well-being for decades, yet not much has changed. This gap between data and actions continues to be stagnant.
With a separate platform for employee relationship building, companies can more effectively implement corrective action based on emotional feedback (regardless of where the tracking takes place). Leaders can target engagement activities to the employees or teams that may be struggling most, share work-life balance suggestions proactively, or even start completely unrelated discussions just for fun as a means of distraction. Organizations will also have clear visibility into how leaders and teams participate on the platform, promote accountability, and better ensure action plans have their intended effect.
4. Do you have a plan to mitigate emotional challenges on the front end?
Companies should be careful not to over-rotate to tracking and instead seek balance by creating an environment that lessens the negative impacts of remote work in the first place. In other words, let’s put a fence at the top of the hill, rather than relying only on the ambulance at the bottom.
Creating a dedicated digital space for non-work-related employee interaction can reduce the feelings of isolation and anxiety brought on by remote work by giving co-workers a community that’s purpose-built for relationship-building and belonging. And it also sends a powerful signal to employees that the company is committed to promoting work/life balance.
Adopting a workplace culture platform where employees can share personal thoughts and feelings (in much the same way they did at the office water cooler, in the breakroom, or during off-site functions) can help build trust and connection. This is critical for employees’ mental health – it helps to know we’re all feeling the same stress and anxiety, and we might even learn some ideas to help overcome them. And, because the discussions are outside the productivity tools they use every day, it provides helpful separation that mitigates the risk of burnout.
Learn More: Time Tracking and Screen Monitoring: Are You Having Trouble Trusting Remote Employees?Opens a new window
Give Employee Well-Being the Attention it Deserves
It’s outstanding that organizations are tuning in to employee emotional and mental healthOpens a new window and that technology providers are responding with solutions. However, in adopting these tools, companies must be careful about the methods they use to track emotional well-being and its implications. After all, there’s zero advantage to adding to burnout or making employees feel like they’re being scrutinized.
Instead, with a more thoughtful approach, separate spaces for proactively addressing emotional stress, and relationship-building interactions that foster trust and belonging, companies can give their team the tools and support they need to manage emotional well-being better.
What measures has your organization taken to track employees’ emotional health? Tell us on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window .