Thrive Therapeutic Software, Warwickshire, England.
University of East Anglia, School of Psychology, Norwich, England.
PLoS One. 2023 May 5;18(5):e0285275. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285275. eCollection 2023.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond for many businesses, employees have had to adapt to new ways of working due to disruptions in traditional practices. It is therefore crucial to understand the new challenges that employees are facing when it comes to taking care of their mental wellbeing at work. To that end, we distributed a survey to full-time UK employees (N = 451) to explore how supported they felt throughout the pandemic, and to identify whether there are any additional types of support they would like to receive. We also compared employees' intentions to seek help before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic, and assessed their current attitudes toward mental health. Based on direct employee feedback, our results show remote workers felt more supported throughout the pandemic compared to hybrid workers. We also found that employees who had previously experienced an episode of anxiety or depression were significantly more likely to want extra support at work compared to those who had not. Furthermore, employees were significantly more likely to seek help for their mental health during the pandemic compared to before. Interestingly, the largest increase in intentions to seek help during the pandemic compared to before was with digital health solutions. Finally, we found that the strategies managers have adopted to better support their employees, an employee's mental health history, and their attitude to mental health all contributed to significantly increasing the likelihood that an employee would disclose a mental health concern to their line manager. We provide recommendations that encourage organisations to make changes to better support their employees, and we highlight the importance of mental health awareness training for both managers and employees. This work is of particular interest to organisations who are looking to tailor their current employee wellbeing offer to a post-pandemic world.
在整个 COVID-19 大流行期间，对于许多企业来说，由于传统实践受到干扰，员工不得不适应新的工作方式。因此，了解员工在工作中照顾自己的心理健康方面面临的新挑战至关重要。为此，我们向英国的全职员工（N=451）分发了一份调查，以探讨他们在大流行期间感到的支持程度，并确定他们是否希望获得任何额外类型的支持。我们还比较了员工在大流行前后寻求帮助的意愿，并评估了他们目前对心理健康的态度。根据直接的员工反馈，我们的研究结果表明，远程工作者在整个大流行期间比混合工作者感到更受支持。我们还发现，与没有经历过焦虑或抑郁发作的员工相比，此前经历过焦虑或抑郁发作的员工更有可能希望在工作中获得额外的支持。此外，与大流行前相比，员工在大流行期间更有可能寻求心理健康方面的帮助。有趣的是，与大流行前相比，在大流行期间寻求心理健康帮助的意愿显著增加的是数字健康解决方案。最后，我们发现，经理们为更好地支持员工而采用的策略、员工的心理健康史以及他们对心理健康的态度都显著增加了员工向直属经理披露心理健康问题的可能性。我们提出了一些建议，鼓励组织做出改变，以更好地支持他们的员工，并强调了为经理和员工提供心理健康意识培训的重要性。对于那些希望根据后疫情时代调整当前员工福利计划的组织来说，这项工作尤其具有意义。
