Addressing employees’ needs goes a long way in making sure they are equipped to best contribute in their role — and an adequate emphasis on supporting their mental health is an important part of that.
“An increased focus on mental health in the workplace will result in happier, more engaged and more productive employees and teams,” Calm Chief People Officer Scott Domann said.
Quarterly mental health days and “mindful manager” education are a few forums that the meditation and sleep app company provides for team members to support their mental health.
At project and collaboration software company Notion, HR Business Partner Jess Fellus described an approach to mental health filtered through areas like financial and emotional security, among other considerations.
“Our programs are designed to attract, motivate and retain phenomenal talent by meaningfully taking care of Notinos through life’s personal and professional moments,” Fellus said.
Below, Fellus and Domann shared how their respective companies aim to support their colleagues’ mental health needs.
How has your company supported employee mental health?
As the leading mental health brand, it’s important for us to stay at the forefront of employee benefits, and we’ve taken a bespoke approach to mental health during the pandemic. We’ve implemented the following to ensure employees and teams are prioritizing their mental health:
- Mental health days: These are once a quarter and designed to give our team the opportunity to disconnect from work and take a collective deep breath.
- Zoom-free work days: To support our team in managing Zoom fatigue, we have dedicated no-meeting days to allow for uninterrupted focus time.
- Companywide meditations: As a long-standing part of our culture, we have a standing meeting any employee can join to meditate. We also kick off companywide meetings with The Daily Calm, allowing a collective moment for all of us to practice mindfulness during the workday.
- Biannual culture surveys: We deploy these surveys twice a year to hear from our employees on what is working for them to help inform our benefits offerings.
- ‘Mindful manager’ education: We’ve reinvented manager effectiveness so that people managers not only focus on impact and delivering on expectations, but how they coach and guide their employees.
What prompted the company to introduce these offerings?
Mental health is health. An increased focus on mental health in the workplace will result in happier, more engaged and more productive employees and teams. One of our top priorities for retaining and engaging new talent is to show we live our values internally, prioritizing employee mental health and well-being and developing an employee-first strategy.
As the leading mental health brand, we live our values internally.”
We are also continuously committed to evaluating our benefits to ensure they are competitive and address the needs our employees have so they can be happy not only at work but outside of work as well.
What have the outcomes been? Have you received any employee feedback?
We’ve received very positive feedback from our employees on these benefits, so much so that we’ve kept them top of mind as we evaluate our benefits packages for future years.
For example, this year we’ve introduced a refresh to our home office stipend to allow our employees to continuously have access to the resources they need to be successful in a remote-first environment. We have also continued providing regular mental health days across the calendar year for employees to take a collective day of rest.
In our most recent culture survey (where we had 87 percent company participation), 96 percent of employees felt their manager genuinely cares about their well-being. In the same survey, 85 percent of employees felt they are able to make necessary changes in how they work to improve their well-being.
How has your company supported employee mental health?
At Notion, we strive to provide Notinos with mental health support through financial and health security, time security and emotional security.
We ensure our employees are equipped to make decisions about their finances by offering monthly financial workshops as a way to educate and cope with financial stress.
Notion offers health support options, including a guide to find a therapist, a mental health app for wellness exercises, six virtual therapy sessions a year and 24/7 crisis support. We also provide monthly funds that can be used towards health and wellness purchases.
We offer flexible PTO so employees can rest and rejuvenate. The company has a week-long holiday closure so that everyone can disconnect. We also offer Compassionate Leave where Notinos have access to PTO for life events such as bereavement, death of a pet, pregnancy loss and legal proceedings.
We have a wellness room that is commonly used for prayer, meditation or a space for Notinos to decompress. Our affinity groups also plan events and resources throughout the year, and we pride ourselves on fostering a sense of belonging in our workplace.
Why did you feel it was important to fortify your mental health support for employees?
Our programs are designed to attract, motivate and retain phenomenal talent by meaningfully taking care of Notinos through life’s personal and professional moments. We want to build out programs where everyone brings their full selves to work knowing that they’ll be heard, feel psychologically safe and supported to succeed. That only happens when employees have financial and health security, time security and emotional security.
We want everyone to bring their full selves to work knowing that they’ll be heard, feel psychologically safe and supported to succeed.”
What have the outcomes been? Have you received any employee feedback?
A 2023 companywide employee engagement survey found that: 94 percent of Notinos are “proud to work for Notion.” Additionally, 93 percent of Notinos “would recommend Notion as a great place to work.”
The feedback on our affinity groups has shown positive results: “Affinity groups are helping create a strong sense of community and cohesion amongst Notinos. I hope that Notion grows to become a company that highly values feedback and input specifically from executive sponsors or affinity group leads who help advocate for the historically marginalized communities, and foster diversity of representation.”
Our efforts to foster community and trust within our office have also been successful.
"People, office, environment, ERGs, recruiting — so many things are the best I’ve seen in the industry. Love going into the office, love the culture and closeness of everybody. Love life stories — everything to do with the day-to-day culture.”
