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

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)

Update from Stacey

As we start spring semester, I want to sincerely thank you for everything you’ve done preparing for the start of the term. Your support of our students, staff, and faculty is critical.

For many of us, the start of a term is a busy time, but this year feels particularly heavy. With the extra stress currently weighing on our community, our work can feel more demanding than ever. I’ve pulled many of you into special requests over the past week, ranging from providing support to students who are struggling, responding to faculty needs for remote or hybrid instruction, and informing campus safety conversations. These requests come to ASR because we are the engine that keeps this institution running.

I hope you are able to find moments of rest and collective support. Feeling stressed and overwhelmed is human. We all need help from time to time. I encourage you to check out the resources shared below.

Employee mental health resources

As we navigate the start of the term, while also looking out for our own communities, it’s important to prioritize our well-being and safety. We encourage you to check in with a colleague, take a moment to rest and rest, and utilize one of the available University resources below:

• Benefits-eligible faculty and staff can access well-being and counseling support through the Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
• The EAP also provides legal help. 24-hour emergency legal services and impactful event resources are also available if you have legal concerns.
• The University’s medical program covers mental health services, which offers both in-person and virtual care options.
• The Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing offers free virtual Mindful Mondays sessions.

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

Mindfulness programs information session

The Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing is offering a free well-being seminar, Mindfulness Programs Information Session, on December 16 at 12 p.m. via Zoom. It is also worth 200 well-being points. The 1 hour session includes an introduction to mindfulness meditation, a short mindfulness meditation, time to ask questions, examples for practicing mindfulness at work and at home, and an overview of the Bakken Center's mindfulness resources and programming. The Mental Wellness in the Workplace group encourages you to take a break during your day and practice mindfulness with a Bakken Center instructor.

Mental Wellness in the Workplace

Supporting you in supporting others

When you are prepared to help others in your daily work and personal life, you support your own mental health. The following resources will help you support others:

• Take a free online Narcan training and learn how to administer naloxone (Narcan) as it is the one factor attributed to lowering death rates from drug overdoses.
• Naloxone locations on campus
• Naloxone in ASR is in 311 Bruinicks and 130 Williamson
• Watch UMN Supporting Student Mental Health, a six-video series on how to support student mental health.
• Why You Should Be Involved in Supporting Student Mental Health and Wellness (3 mins)
• What Your Role is and isn't in Supporting Student Mental Health (9 mins)
• Listening Intentionally to Support Student Mental Health & Wellness (9 mins)
• Making Effective Referrals (5 mins)
• Responding to a mental health crisis (8 mins)
• The Police Response to Mental Health Calls (6 mins)

Mental Health Awareness Month

May is Mental Health Awareness Month—a time to highlight the importance of mental health, while offering resources for those in need. It’s also a great time to examine how mental health intersects with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the workplace.

A lack of representation, microaggressions, implicit bias, and other stressors can impact an employee’s mental health and psychological safety at work. As Dan Gillian, the CEO of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), states, “The effect of racism and racial trauma on mental health is real and cannot be ignored.” Challenges related to racial discrimination, institutional prejudice, social isolation, political repression, and economic marginalization can all affect a person’s mental, emotional, and physical health.

But by prioritizing mental health in DEI initiatives and understanding how the two are greatly intertwined, we can work towards fostering a safe and supportive workplace where employees feel valued, respected, and accepted. We can prioritize mental health in our DEI initiatives by:

• Starting the conversation and creating a culture of open communication
• Taking implicit bias training to help build diverse teams and celebrating cultural differences
• Offering flexible work arrangements to accommodate different needs and encourage employees to take time-off
• Promoting mental health resources and the Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Mental Wellness in the Workplace

Managing burnout - Conversation starters

Based on your feedback, we are offering resources to help you identify when your workload is too much and how to have conversations with your direct reports about stress, burnout, and workload. Here are some questions that may be helpful to get you started.

From supervisor to staff

Workload management

• What tasks/responsibilities have taken longer than expected? 
• What are your top priorities for today/this week/etc.? 
• Are there any barriers in your job? What can I do to help remove those barriers? 
• What tasks are most stressful? What part of the workday do you find most stressful?

Performance management

• What do you consider your personal successes today/this week/etc.?
• How can I help you be successful at work? 
• What is the best way to give you meaningful feedback about your performance (positive or negative)? 
• What suggestions do you have for improvements in the work? The office?

Wellbeing

• Is there anything new going on that you’d like to talk about?
• What can I do to support you? 
• What are the top one or two things concerning you right now?

You can review our other resources on having meaningful conversations as well.

Update from Stacey

I struggle to balance my desire to be a well-informed citizen with the weight of the national and international news. Most present on my mind recently, probably like many of you, has been the escalating war in Israel and Gaza. After reading the University-wide messages, I want to emphasize a few points.

We need to remember that we have members of our community directly impacted by this news and to provide flexibility and kindness. Staff, faculty, and students may have loved ones in that region, and they greet the news or their text messages with increasing dread. This prevents people from being able to pay the same level of attention to their work or studies. I encourage folks to take advantage of the many mental health resources we have available through the University.

President Ettinger also noted in his message that “our differences can heighten during times of crisis and conflict,” and that you are encouraged to report any bias incidents on campus to the Bias Response and Referral Network.

Finally, I was in conversation with someone whose daughter was stuck in Israel after her outbound flights to the U.S. were canceled. Thankfully, she was supported by Project Dynamo, along with several other U.S. citizens, and safely landed in the U.S. this weekend. As we think about making donations as part of the Community Fund Drive, I’m planning to contribute to the Tina Rovic Falkner Memorial Scholarship and make a donation to Project Dynamo as well.