Marketing teams are well renowned for their busy-schedules, agile dusk to dawn environments and often stressful multi-campaign juggling skills. While there is no blanket approach to mental health, marketing agencies can work to support their staff on an individual basis while instituting a top-down approach to changing toxic company culture, according to agency insiders on a recent report by the Association of National Advertisers. This report by ANA last year highlights the significance of the issue.
How can marketers cope with burnout and stress?
Burnout and feelings of being overwhelmed are not unusual. In fact, it’s quite common, as WHO reported “approximately 10.7 percent of the worldwide population — 792 million people — have a mental health disorder”
Destigmatising having feelings of stress, burnout, and other overwhelming emotions is necessary to creating a healthy environment, both personally and at work. Everyone deals with these feelings at some point, and having access to resources, wellness centres, and empathetic managers makes a significant difference in people’s lives. And, of course, when people feel supported, company work culture is positively affected.
World Mental Health Day
With the 10th October celebrating World Mental Health Day, here are three ways that you can support your marketing team’s mental health and build a cohesive inclusive culture across your organisation:
- Market days off for self-care. Employees may be reluctant to take a “mental health day” if they fear being stigmatised. Yet seeking care takes time, and disconnecting from work is important. If employees are struggling to find the time to seek help, encourage them to take days off.
- Use the power of storytelling to solve HR’s problems, and this problem can benefit from a storytelling strategy as well. Seeing our co-workers and leaders openly discuss mental health is a key step in dissolving stigma. Can you imagine the power of a CEO sharing their experience seeking counselling? If your leaders are brave enough to share, the impact can be monumental.
- Listening is vital for every relationship. While this may seem like a simple tool, it is one that many organisations overlook. There’s a disconnect between talkers and listeners which needs to be addressed if we’re to improve mental health at work. We should embrace more generalised discussions that reflect the spectrum of human emotion
Take a moment today to check on your team, your colleagues and yourself.
