Mental Wellness in the Workplace

Coping with rapid change in the workplace: long-term strategies

Taking care of ourselves and recognizing when we feel overwhelmed can be challenging, especially when we’re facing high levels of stress. If we don’t take care of ourselves and take the breaks necessary to heal, it can lead to burnout, which affects both our personal and professional lives.

While implementing small, everyday strategies can provide immediate relief to burnout, developing long-term coping mechanisms is essential for preventing or curing burnout altogether. 

If burnout feels like lost energy, enthusiasm, or confidence, the Lyra article, “Burnout 101: Symptoms and Coping," suggests the antidote is to accumulate joy. The article also recommends to do the following to accumulate joy.

Build Resilience—Find joy in your work by focusing on aspects that inspire you or bring you satisfaction. This could involve setting personal goals, pursuing professional development, or celebrating team successes.

Personalize Your Workspace—Make your workspace a reflection of your personality by incorporating items that bring you happiness, such as framed photos of loved ones, motivational quotes, or meaningful souvenirs from travels.

Mindfulness in the Moment—Take time to engage with your environment while working. Pause occasionally to appreciate the sights, sounds, and scents around you, as this practice can enhance your awareness and help reduce stress.

Breathing Breaks—Remember to step away for brief breathing breaks during particularly busy or overwhelming periods. Techniques such as deep breathing can help clear your mind and rejuvenate your focus.

Track Your Accomplishments—Maintain a journal or a digital list of your daily or weekly achievements. This can serve as a powerful reminder of your progress and boost your confidence, especially during challenging times.

Enjoy Music Wisely—Listen to music that enhances your mood or productivity when appropriate.

Engage in Balancing Activities—Identify activities that help restore your energy and balance. For example, if your work involves long periods of sitting at a desk, schedule regular walking or stretching breaks. Simple exercises can invigorate your body and improve circulation.

Mental Wellness in the Workplace

Coping with rapid change in the workplace: action and adaptation

As you work through changes at work, taking action and adapting is vital and oftentimes difficult when you’re feeling overwhelmed and stuck. One strategy to feel more engaged, fulfilled, and productive in your community and work is to cultivate compassion (2 min video). Lewis Carroll also gives great advice on how to work through difficulty and overcome a creative block—if you want a fun dive, ahem, down the rabbit hole.

We also recommend checking out the following resources:

• Building Work Stress Resilience
• A Moment for Encouragement (2 min video)
• What To Do When Your To-Do List Is Too Much (2 min video)
• How to Get Started When You're Feeling Stuck

You can read our first and second article about change in the workplace on the N&N blog.

Mental Wellness in the Workplace

Coping with rapid change

When things at work change unexpectedly, it can help to gather information and ask your managers and colleagues questions to better understand how the changes will affect you. We recommend the following articles to help you communicate with your coworkers and manage change:

• Communication dos and don'ts at work (5 min read)
• Communicating under pressure (5 min read)
• 6 Ways to Manage Stressful Transitions at Work (5 min read)

You can read our first article about change in the workplace on the N&N blog.

DEI Coffee Hour

We want to give a special thank you to those who joined us at the DEI Coffee Hour on March 16. As mentioned at the end of the coffee hour, we have a Mental Wellness in the Workplace Q&A form devoted to answering general questions related to workplace mental wellness. We encourage you to continue submitting questions to the form, as this helps inform our discussion topics.

Mental Wellness in the Workplace

Free Naloxone and overdose response training

Boynton Health provides free access to naloxone nasal spray across the Twin Cities campus. Naloxone is a life-saving, easy-to-use medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose. If you want to learn how to administer it or how to respond during an overdose emergency, you can register to attend Boynton Health and UMNPrepared’s free on-campus and in-person overdose response training on March 25 or April 29.

Mental Wellness in the Workplace

Join us at the DEI Coffee Hour

The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee is collaborating with the Mental Wellness in the Workplace workgroup for their upcoming March 16 coffee hour. We are excited to meet and chat with you at the intersection of DEI and mental health and how we can continue to work during stressful times.

The DEI committee will be sending out additional resources and reflection questions to guide the conversation before the Coffee Hour. We also recommend checking out the following resources:

• Protect yourself from Fear when reading the News (5 min read)
• Managing low mood from Ongoing Stress (requires login, 8 min)
• Managing Emotional Disregulation (15 min read with exercise)

Mental Wellness in the Workplace

Coping with rapid change in the workplace

We are accustomed to rapid change here at the University. But even welcomed change can affect our minds and bodies. Rapid change can cause us to feel stress, anxiety, and uncertainty about the future, and can cause our bodies to experience physical symptoms, like sleep and digestive issues, and getting sick more often.

If you are experiencing stress or anxiety related to change, you should acknowledge your feelings, take a break, focus on what you can control, employ empathy, and get help when needed. If you are feeling symptoms longer than usual, or more intensely, you may need to seek out more care. If you have any insight regarding change, please take our short survey.

University resources

• Stress Management
• Taking care of yourself under stress
• Mindfulness based stress reduction
• Courses
• Center for Spirituality and Healing
• Banishing burnout and building resilience

Mental Wellness in the Workplace

In our last survey, we asked about your favorite workload management tips for new staff members. “You can only do so much in a day. Tomorrow is another day,” and “Talk to your supervisor about expectations and prioritization” were mentioned the most.

From that feedback, we’ve put together the following resources to help you identify when your workload is too much and how to have conversations about stress, burnout, and workload:

• Burnout: Symptoms & Strategies (5 min watch)
• Beating Burnout (5 min read)

After reviewing the resources, can you identify one issue that you could try to address to help reduce burnout in yourself? We plan to write about the following topics over the next several issues of News and Notes:

• What does burnout look like in your direct reports?
• How do you talk to your supervisor about your stress, burnout, or workload?
• How do you talk to your direct reports about stress, burnout, or workload?

In our last survey, we also asked who you would want to meet, the Paris Olympic mascot Phrygian cap or the therapy dog Beacon. With 100% of the vote, the “Goodest Boy” won by a landslide! 

 

Mental Wellness in the Workplace

This week, we continue to share the results from our May 2024 staff engagement surveys. If you haven’t already, please take our three-question survey.

What do you do when you realize you are burned out or approaching burnout?

It is encouraging to see that a large percentage recognize they need to take a break and act on it. We received some great suggestions for other topics they'd like resources on:

• Resources for working with colleagues with mental illnesses such as PTSD or depression.
• Resources for working with colleagues who are exhibiting signs of stress and burnout.

Each survey had several comments from colleagues that we want to acknowledge, including stress and burnout related to work and compensation issues and family-related stress. We would like to express our support for all of our colleagues who have too much to do, pay that is not adequate, and/or family or other non-work-related stress. We hear you, and while some of the topics brought up are out of scope for our workgroup, they are not out of concern for us. We will keep these things in mind as we look at University resources to share, and as we talk with supervisors in September.

What's next?

Over the next few months, the Mental Wellness workgroup is going to be talking to supervisors about survey results, sharing University resources we think will be helpful, and asking you questions to help keep us on track.

Employee Assistance Program

Curious about the free resources available through the University’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP)?

• Visit the University EAP page
• Read more about the University EAP partner - Lyra
• Listen to a 18-minute video presentation about the EAP from Lyra. (9 ½ minutes of presentation + 9 minutes Q&A)

Make sure to take our survey in the ASR Staff Engagement section of today’s News and Notes. The ASR Mental Wellness group uses your survey answers in their work. Thank you for participating.

ASR Staff Engagement May 16 Survey

This week’s ASR Staff Engagement Survey continues our collaboration with the ASR Mental Wellness group focusing on stress and burnout. Thank you for continuing to share your stories and experiences!

According to the last survey, most respondents take a break when they realize they are burned out or are approaching burnout, followed by those that continue on and address the stress at the same time. In addition, a majority say highlighting University-related resources and bringing an associated speaker to an ASR all-staff would be beneficial regarding stress and burnout. Thanks all for your continued participation! It is very much appreciated.

Mental Health Awareness Month

May is Mental Health Awareness month. ASR’s Mental Wellness in the Workplace Committee works to share resources with staff and to create an environment that promotes positive mental health.

• Visit Mental Wellness at Work on the ASR staff site which includes a link to the University’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
• Search for the tag “mental wellness” in the News & Notes blog to reference previous articles shared via the newsletter.
• Take our survey in the ASR Staff Engagement section of today’s News and Notes. The ASR Mental Wellness group uses your survey answers in their work. Thank you for participating.

We are looking to expand our committee. If you are interested and want to learn more, please reach out to Amanda Grimm (grim0079@umn.edu).

ASR Staff Engagement May 2 Survey

This week’s ASR Staff Engagement Survey is a collaboration with the ASR Mental Wellness group and focuses on stress and burnout. Please consider completing the survey as it will be used in their work going forward. Thank you for continuing to share your stories and experiences!

According to the last survey, 51.9% of respondents have used the Regents Tuition Benefit program. In addition, most have a general understanding of how the tuition benefit program works (85.2%). Finally, we asked about your favorite breakfast food. Eggs benedict, pancakes, and breakfast sandwiches were mentioned most frequently. Thanks all for your continued participation! It is very much appreciated. Results from the last survey are available below.

April 18 survey results

Have you ever used the Regents Tuition Benefit program (formerly known as the Regents Scholarship Program)?

• Yes (51.9%)
• No, I am not considering that at this time (22.2%)
• No, but I know someone that has used the program (11.1%)
• No, but I am considering applying for the program in the future (14.8%)

In general, do you know how the Regents Tuition Benefit program works?

• Yes, I believe so (85.2%)
• No, I don’t think so (14.8%)

What's your favorite breakfast food?

• An egg and sausage (or bacon) sandwich on an English muffin!
• No food. Coffee!!
• Cold pizza
• Pancakes
• Chilaquiles with sunny side up eggs on the side and a piece of cecina!