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Choosing a Direct Mail Strategy: EDDM vs. Targeted Mailing

Posted: 02 Jun 2020 03:46 PM PDT

These days, it's difficult to browse the digital world without being bombarded with advertisements. From emails to promoted links on search engines and targeted advertisements on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms, you can find a flurry of companies hawking their services anywhere you go. Every company has its own digital marketing strategy, seeking any way to get a slight edge over its competitors.            

While the internet does provide a valuable avenue for accessing a massive customer base, it's also important to consider other marketing channels, in order to diversify your advertising strategies and maximize the effectiveness of your marketing. Though many people say that direct mail marketing is becoming an obsolete strategy, the statistics show that it is still an effective way to advertise. To cite just one number, the Data and Marketing Association showed that direct mail advertisements produced a response rate of roughly 4.4%, while email advertising campaigns garnered a response rate of just 0.1%. 

However, for your direct mail marketing campaign to be successful, it is important to first decide which mailing strategy is best for you. The two most common ones are every door direct mailing (EDDM) and targeted mailing. Here is a breakdown of both strategies, including some pros and cons of each, to help you decide which one is best for you and your business. 

Every door direct mailing

EDDM is exactly what it sounds like: a cheap, effective way to disperse your business's advertisements within a certain region or postal code by dropping them off at every door. These advertisements do not require a name or address because they are given to each home, saving you the trouble of compiling mailing lists or keeping track of customers. Instead, your mail will simply follow the mail carrier's route, ensuring that you reach every single household and apartment building in a specific area. You determine the number you'd like to send out for a specific postal route for your business and the carrier route you'd like to follow.  

The EDDM strategy has a host of benefits. Perhaps most importantly, it's cheaper than many other direct mail strategies. EDDM doesn't require you to obtain a mailing permit, which must be renewed and also requires an application fee. Without mailing lists, you can save money on postage. Finally, because EDDM doesn't require you to address mail, dispersing your mail is faster and easier than it would be with a mailing list.  

Such a strategy also has its drawbacks, though they are outnumbered by the benefits. The biggest one is perhaps the lack of personalization associated with targeting every household in a certain region. Without a name and address on your mailing, the advertisement can certainly lack a personal touch, and we know that a personalized advertisement, whether it is done with tricks like pen machine addressing or variable data printing, can increase response rates and positive emotional responses to your marketing campaign.  

 

Editor's note: Looking for a direct mail marketing service? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you with free information.

 

 

If you want a personalized version of an EDDM campaign, then saturation mailing is also a viable option. Saturation mailing works in much the same way as traditional EDDM – your mailing will be distributed along mail carrier route lists – but names and addresses will be included on your advertisements. Saturation mailing is slightly more expensive than standard EDDM, but the marginal increase in costs also leads to greater response rates, and by using saturation mailing, you can target the same set of households multiple times to amplify the effect of your advertising campaign.  

Both saturation mailing and normal EDDM are especially useful for businesses that appeal to the vast majority of residents and businesses in the target area. For example, a new restaurant would likely want to utilize an EDDM or saturation mailing campaign targeted to its surrounding area to attract potential customers. Gyms, retail stores, churches and new medical facilities are other fantastic examples of businesses that benefit from EDDM. You could use it to inform nearby neighborhoods of a new monthly pass for a gym or an Easter service at a church. On the other hand, companies that offer more specialized, niche products and services, with consumers who are similar in demographics or characteristics, would likely be better off using targeted mailing campaigns that utilize data-driven mailing lists. 

Targeted mailing  

If you are looking to tailor your marketing campaign to a specific segment of consumers, a targeted mailing campaign is the strategy you should utilize. Rather than send your advertisements to everyone in a specific geographical area, you purchase one or more mailing lists to maximize response rates and ensure you are reaching the correct people. The contents of these lists can vary (e.g., businesses in a certain sector, or owners of specific automotive vehicles), but there are various ways to target the best potential customers for your business, nonprofit or organization. 

A targeted mailing campaign is fantastic for businesses that promote niche services or are geared toward a specific user base. A luxury car dealership, for example, would want to advertise to people in specific income brackets, while a moving company would target new movers or pre-movers, and a private school would target a slightly different segment of customers who have multiple children in their households. This strategy also allows you to give your messages a personal touch.  

Of course, the downside to this is that any targeted mailing will be more expensive than a simple EDDM campaign. You must find a reputable mailing list provider and purchase a data-driven mailing list. Generally, full-service direct mail companies have access to targeted mailing lists that they can customize for you. Nevertheless, targeted mailing has tangible benefits that seem to far outweigh the cons, especially if your business is only trying to appeal to a certain group of people or doesn't require you to advertise to everyone. 

The bottom line on direct mailing strategies 

It's clear that direct mail marketing is still a viable advertising strategy that all companies should try to utilize. Digital marketing, with all of its bells and whistles, might appear to be slightly more versatile than direct mail marketing, but we've just outlined some direct mail strategies that you can still use to get ahead of competitors and successfully expand your business. These are just two of many productive ways to successfully implement a direct mail marketing campaign. There are many other tactics to use it to its full potential.  

As an expert in the direct mail industry for over 30 years, I believe the advantages of strategized direct mail marketing campaigns are often underestimated. A well-designed campaign does not come easily, but there are direct mail companies that will handle the entire operation for your business, educating you in the process. Full-service mailing companies are generally preferable because they can operate mailing campaigns at the lowest costs and with the quickest turnaround, because their services are performed in-house with their own equipment. 

Cost Center or Profit Center? What B2B Support Truly Means to Your Business

Posted: 02 Jun 2020 12:21 PM PDT

There are two types of viewpoints when it comes to B2B (business-to-business) customer support. The first approaches B2B customer support as a cost center, or a necessary expense for running a business. After all, having a support team is required for your product, and it's just something you need to have.

The second posits that B2B customer support is a profit center. Support may be part of a successful business, but that is because they are a part of a greater revenue-generating team. Their interactions with customers are not merely a process that needs to happen; instead, they view their conversations as potential opportunities to drive revenue, strengthen customer relationships and reduce churn.

How do you know which approach your business takes? And if it's as a profit center, whether your support team is operating as such on all of its channels? Let us evaluate the key support channels with examples of how a cost center and a profit center approach them.

Ticket management (email and form)

  • Cost center: A B2B support team is only doing their job well when a ticket queue is empty. When a ticket comes in, it needs a response ASAP, even if the full context or resources to answer the ticket are unavailable. We simply need to get the ticket closed and move on to the next one. And we certainly can't spend any time following up with the customer to make sure the resolution is satisfactory. We'll just deal with them if they submit a new ticket. After all, leadership cares mainly about how many tickets we closed today, not how many problems we solved.

  • Profit center: Tickets in the B2B industry are important touch points in customer relationships. If a customer is submitting a ticket via email or form, their issue may be complex and likely require a visual component. Assign the ticket to an agent who is familiar with that account and let them suggest the right course of action. That agent will stick with the customer until the issue is resolved. And in the course of the dialogue, may uncover an opportunity to upgrade their account – an upselling opportunity – and that can only be determined by taking time to find out what the real problem is and fix it!

Phone

  • Cost center: We need to keep wait time down, so we get customers off the phone as fast as we can. Have agents suggest a few common solutions, and if none work, tell the customer to submit a ticket and move on. After all, the lower the call time, the more calls each agent can take per hour, and we can lower our staffing cost. It's all about saving money, right?

  • Profit center: Helping a customer over the phone has many benefits. Not only can you get to know them far better than email or chat, but you can pick up on subtle audio cues and take action. If a customer has an issue that does not seem like a big deal in writing, but they have an urgent tone in their voice, you can dig deeper into figuring out the total scope of the issue, solve it immediately and completely. And all of that extra effort and time will go a long way in ensuring they stay a customer. We've all heard the saying, "Do it right the first time." Getting the problems solved in one conversation, even if it takes a bit more time, means that the customer won't have to call back in, mitigating frustration and enhancing satisfaction.

Live chat

  • Cost center: We provide live chat because a lot of our customers requested it, but it's not a channel we focus on. Most of the questions are simple, like asking for a phone number or order update, and we get to those when we can. Chat is not a priority because it's not a channel for solving "real" problems, like we get through email and phone. We do not feature it as a key part of our support solution.

  • Profit center: Live chat may not be a channel for complex issues, but it's often the first channel a customer interacts with when they are new to your business. We have a chat button on every key support page of our site to ensure customers know how to contact us right away for answers, even if our response is, "We do not know, but we will look into it and follow up as soon as possible." The ability to conveniently contact support when something goes wrong, especially via chat, is an essential part of reducing customer churn and increasing customer satisfaction.

Self-service

  • Cost center: There is no way we are going to offer support outside of normal business hours, but we face a huge ticket queue and a lot of voicemails each morning. So, we are going to take some of the scripted templates we have for responding to tickets and put them online for our customers to find. This way when we are not around, customers can fumble through the documents and solve their own problems.

  • Profit center: Self-service is a great channel for letting customers educate themselves on not only how to solve a problem but also about your entire business. Sure, it can reduce ticket and phone volume which helps save money, but often self-service is considered a last resort or a supplementary resource for customers. Agents who utilize B2B customer support software that allows for self-service content to be quickly inserted into ticket or chat conversations can solve problems and increase self-service awareness at the same time.

Visual support

  • Cost center: Solving a customer problem via screen share or video chat is too much work. There are so many variables involved. And some of our agent workstations are kind of a mess, so we would have to clean things up to be more visually appealing. What if we run into technical issues trying to connect to customers? We do not have time for that. By the time one screen share or video chat happens, we could have closed a half dozen tickets.

  • Profit center: Especially in this decade where working and providing support remotely has become commonplace, we recognize that the benefits of visual support far outweigh any negatives. Leading B2B customer support software solutions provide visual support options with no additional cost, and this technology can turn complex email chains into 15-minute screen share conversations. The time savings of properly leveraging visual support is huge, so much so that some customers view it as an essential support feature and do not want to be supported in any other way once they see the power of these tactics.

Viewing customer support as a profit center and not a cost center can have a major impact on the success of your support operations, enhance customer relationships, and, yes, drive profits to the bottom line through reduced churn, upselling, and the value proposition for new clients.

How to Easily Implement a 5S Program for Your Business

Posted: 02 Jun 2020 10:20 AM PDT

What do Amazon, Boeing, 3M, and the United States Army and Marine Corps all have in common? For starters, these establishments all use lean principles and methodologies. Another thing they have in common is that visitors to their facilities are taken aback by their stellar levels of housekeeping and orderly workplaces. However, how long do you think they would stay in business if they started slacking in this area? Probably, not very long – and they rely on 5S, a powerful lean tool, to maintain these high levels of quality.

Do these prerequisites first

The drive for 5S implementation is transformative, and it gets people to think outside of the box. Organizations that have great success with it use lean tools such as 5S audits and key performance indicators (KPIs). One crucial thing you should do before starting 5S implementation is immerse yourself in lean philosophy. Most stakeholders do not begin a 5S program if they do not intend to be lean afterward. And if you cannot successfully implement 5S, you don't have a chance of implementing lean.

The book, Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation by James Womack and Daniel T. Jones, is a must read for anyone starting their lean journey. Meanwhile, The 5S Pocket Guide by James Peterson and Roland Smith discusses everything you need to know about 5S programs in a condensed form. Reading these books is the first step toward efficiently implementing a 5S program for your organization.

Kickstart the best 5S program

The best implementation success is through excellent, well-thought-out planning. Anything else is Muda (that's waste in lean terms).

Here are three foolproof pointers for kickstarting your 5S workplace organization:

  • Pointer 1: Play nice. 5S is considered a tool, but you do not have to be one while showing people how to transform. People will not want to play in the sandbox with you if you are a jerk. After all, you'll be rolling up your sleeves and working alongside them doing something that is typically not 'your job,' per se. You want the circumstances to be a pleasant one to remember.

  • Pointer 2: Inform all departments of the plan. It is paramount that everyone involved knows about your 5S implementation plan for proper buy-in. If you don't get it, anchor-dragging personalities that didn't buy your pitch will bog down your efforts. For starters, have an ice-breaking meeting with the affected departments. During the meeting, give them an overview of what's at the core of 5S, along with the proposed plan for implementation. Importantly, state the benefits of the program. The optimal plan should provide a strategic timetable or completion date. When each step is completed, communicate that fact in detail to everyone involved in the 5S efforts.

  • Pointer 3: Lead by example. Leaders get to be leaders by – you guessed it – leading. One of the best ways to sound the charge for 5S implementation is leading by example. This approach involves getting in the trenches with the employees and working through it all with them. Workers are likely to follow the lead after that. Having everyone's buy-in and continued involvement helps, especially with the physical workload of the first 3S's. Also, don't forget to take plenty of before-and-after pictures; they are convincing proof for the visitors and workers of just how far everyone involved has come in the process. Once initial gains are made, the pics are useful reminders that keep everyone motivated to continue their 5S endeavors.

Know the five elements of 5s

Five elements constitute 5S, and you should do all of them in sequence for optimal success. They are Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain. Here is what they entail:

  • Sort: Here, you sort out the essential from the nonessential.

  • Set in Order: Everything has a place, and everything is in its place.

  • Shine: A little more abstract than the other steps, Shine is much more than housecleaning. Examples include painting dull milestone objects or equipment to make them shine.

  • Standardize: The first 3S's need to be standardized. Roles and responsibilities need to be defined, documentation and processes for the organization need to be standardized, including those for 5S.

  • Sustain: The most challenging part of 5S, this step is designed to ensure you hold onto gains made in the first 4S's.

Conduct 5s audits

To keep people motivated and continuously improving during the process, you must conduct audits. Also, it should be more than one person because a new set of eyes keeps things fresh. Moreover, sustainment is the most challenging part of the program, but you can tame it through periodic 5S audits. So, how do you conduct a 5S audit?

To conduct a 5S audit, you start by making a simple Excel spreadsheet with five parts the company needs to work on based on each of the five categories of 5S. The five categories are then broken down into five sections, with one out of five scores on each line. All lines have a maximum score of five, and each category is tallied up and shown on the right.

Develop and use 5S KPIs

Here is an example of what criteria you would audit for Set in Order, the second 5S. As you can see, the two areas that got dinged need a little work.  That result is fine for now, and part of the continuous improvement effort that is the backbone of lean.

Source: Image courtesy of Holly Chavez

You can feed results from the 5S audit form to data fields in an Excel 5S radar chart. You can then post the results of it and the audit form in the area that you audited. A 5S radar chart can be a robust KPI since 5S audit scores are visual and noticeable at a glance. 5S audits will then lead to root cause analysis troubleshooting and strategies to help alleviate any issues and their reoccurrence. Once problems are proven to be under control after monitoring, you can change parts of the 5S's to focus on any new housekeeping issues.

Source: Image courtesy of Holly Chavez

Final thoughts

We've outlined an easy way to implement a successful 5S program, but it won't happen overnight. Besides devoting a significant amount of time to it, the program doesn't require much of an investment. The concept is easy to understand, but it requires discipline. Once you have success, the tangible benefits and returns are more than worth it.

What Health Insurance Benefits Are You Legally Required to Offer?

Posted: 02 Jun 2020 05:43 AM PDT

When deciding which benefits to offer employees, most business owners start with health insurance. Besides proving great value to employees, a comprehensive health insurance benefit package can be an effective way to attract and retain top workers. Learning the basics about health insurance plans and the legal requirements for them is the first step in putting together a comprehensive benefits package for your employees. 

What are health insurance benefits?

Health insurance benefits are items or services covered under a health insurance plan, such as doctor and hospital visits, a health savings account, short-term and long-term disability insurance, and mental health services. These benefits shield insured individuals from high medical costs, making it more affordable for them to access medical care for illnesses, accidents, and overall health and wellness.  

Are employers legally required to provide health insurance benefits?

Healthcare in the U.S. is increasingly expensive, so it makes sense that health insurance is one of the most desired employee benefits your business can offer. But is your business legally required to provide health insurance? Not necessarily. 

The Affordable Care Act requires some employers to provide information about the health insurance marketplace, whether they offer health insurance or not. No law directly requires employers to provide healthcare plans for their employees, though the ACA generally imposes penalties on large businesses that don't provide health insurance. 

Under the ACA, employer shared responsibility provisions – also referred to as the employer mandate – requires employers with 50 or more full-time employees (or the equivalent in part-time employees) to provide health insurance to 95% of their employees and those employees' dependents. Employers who fail to meet this requirement may incur fines of up to $3,860 for each full-time employee. Additionally, the employer mandate stipulates that the health insurance coverage must meet a minimum value standard – which, according to the IRS, means that the plan "covers at least 60% of the total allowed cost of benefits that are expected to be incurred under the plan" and will "substantially cover in-patient hospitalization services or physician services." 

 

Editor's note: Need a health insurance plan for your business? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you with free information. 

 

What is open enrollment, and how does it work?

Businesses that provide health insurance must offer it to all eligible employees during open enrollment. Open enrollment dates vary by state, and some states extend their open enrollment periods to start before or after initial dates have been announced. Typically, open enrollment starts in November and runs through the middle of December. 

"During this period, employees can make any changes to their current enrollment stats, such as adding or deducting dependents and deciding which insurance plan to enroll in if their employer offers multiple plan options," said Nicholas Tzoumas, president of Clearscope HR. "Once the open enrollment period ends, no changes can be made by employees unless they experience a qualifying event." 

Employees who experience a qualifying life event – such as getting married or having a baby – may be eligible for a special enrollment period that allows them to sign up for insurance or change insurance coverage outside of open enrollment. Depending on the type of special enrollment, you may have 30 or 60 days before or after the qualifying event to enroll in or change a plan. 

For new hires, the ACA says that employers can't wait more than 90 days to offer health insurance benefits to otherwise eligible employees. 

What are health insurance premiums, and how are they calculated?

A health insurance premium is the amount your insurance plan costs, generally expressed as a monthly fee. For group employer-sponsored plans, insurance premiums can be shared between the employee and employer, according to Rocky Mehta, principal at Best Employment Solutions Team. 

"The advantage of most group health plans that are sponsored by an employer is that the premiums are exempt from most payroll-related taxes for both the employee and employer, regardless of who pays for the premium," Mehta said. "Premiums are calculated by the carrier based on geographic region, ages of the insured, what group they are rated with and, most importantly, the level of coverage selected." 

How do deductibles, coinsurance and copays work?

Deductibles, coinsurance and copays are all examples of what your employees will pay for healthcare expenses. 

Deductibles

A deductible is the amount of money that plan participants pay for healthcare services before the insurance company begins to pay. For example, if your plan's deductible is $2,000, your employee will pay 100% of their healthcare bills until eligible expenses total $2,000. Then, the participant will share the cost of care with the health plan provider by paying coinsurance. 

Coinsurance

This is the money the plan participant pays to share the costs of a healthcare expense, such as a visit to the doctor. Once the participant meets the deductible, they will usually pay a percentage of the amount the health insurance provider allows to be charged for services. 

For example, if the plan participant met the $2,000 deductible, they would pay coinsurance on the remaining allowable costs. If the allowed amount is $10,000, the coinsurance is 20%, and the out-of-pocket maximum is $5,000, the total out-of-pocket expenses would be $3,600: 

  • $10,000 (allowed amount) - $2,000 (deductible) = $8,000
  • $8,000 (remaining allowable cost) x 0.2 (coinsurance) = $3,600 

Then, if out-of-pocket expenses for the deductible and coinsurance reach $5,000, the health insurance provider would pay for all additional covered services for the remainder of the plan year. 

Copayment

A copayment, or copay, is a fixed amount that the plan participant pays to a healthcare provider after they have paid the deductible. Let's say a health insurance plan's allowable cost for a doctor's visit is $150 and the copay for a doctor visit is $25. If the participant has met the deductible, they would pay $25 upfront to the doctor. If the participant hasn't met the deductible, they would pay $150, which is the full allowed amount. 

Which health insurance benefits do employees want?

The basic health insurance benefit that many employees want is medical coverage for doctor visits with a primary care physician. However, many other employee benefits are desirable, including vision and dental coverage and affordable prescription drugs. Offering progressive or flexible benefits like mental health programs, child care, urgent care and preventive care can help you attract quality employees and maintain high retention rates. 

What are the advantages of offering health insurance benefits to employees?

Employees are your business's most valuable assets, and keeping them healthy and satisfied can increase productivity within your workforce. 

Mehta believes that quality health insurance benefits are a key deciding factor for employees considering job offers. As such, offering health insurance helps you not only remain competitive by hiring the right employees, but also keep them for the long term. 

Mehta noted that there are also financial incentives for employers to offer health insurance. "When properly structured, offering employee benefits (even if the employer is not paying for the majority of the premium) also has major tax advantages to both the employee and employer." 

What types of health insurance benefits should a business owner offer?

When deciding which types of health insurance benefits to offer, you should assess the needs of your employees to determine what your benefits should cover and how much the employee and employer contributions should be. 

Employers should be looking for ways to meet employees' evolving needs and get the most value for their benefit spending, according to Peter Nieves, chief commercial officer for WINFertility. He gave the following examples of trending benefits that business owners can offer. 

  • Family-building benefits: A family-building benefit makes it more affordable for employees to build a family in a way that best suits them, such as egg and sperm freezing, IVF, adoption, or surrogacy.  
  • Telemedicine: Coverage for virtual doctor visits makes it easier and less expensive for your employees to see quality healthcare providers.

How to Monitor and Support Employee Mental Health

Posted: 02 Jun 2020 05:00 AM PDT

As an employer, it is imperative that you take the proper measures to help your employees stay healthy, both physically and mentally. We spoke with human resource and mental health experts to learn why employee mental health is critical right now and what you can do to support your team. 

The coronavirus and its toll on employee mental health

As companies have been forced to take drastic measures like pivoting their business strategies, laying off and furloughing employees, and even shutting down, employees have had to adjust accordingly, even as they deal with personal difficulties. With quarantine and work-from-home orders still in place in several states, many employees are feeling the emotional effects of isolation and confinement. A recent FinanceBuzz survey revealed that nearly half of employees report feeling isolated. 

Although it is always important to support the mental health of your employees, it is especially critical now, as employees are experiencing an increase in mental health challenges, such as anxiety and depression. Caroline Ogilvy, a licensed independent clinical social worker and behavioral health specialist at Firefly Health, said there was a threefold increase in depression and anxiety diagnoses among their Firefly Health patients within the first few weeks of the pandemic. 

These mental health challenges are affecting many employees for the first time, which may be detrimental to your team. 

"In the midst of such uncertainty both at work and in the world, employees who have never experienced significant mental health challenges may be experiencing it for the first time, and might be unaware of the impact anxiety and depression can have on their work," said Erika Ames, a therapist and licensed clinical social worker at Tailwinds Counseling.   

Employee mental health is always important for both the employee and the employer in terms of performance and productivity; as a business owner, it is imperative that you heed the warning signs and support your team as needed.  

What are the negative effects of ignoring employee mental health?

Unfortunately, mental health issues are often ignored in the workplace. According to Carla Yudhishthu, vice president of people operations at ThinkHR and Mammoth HR, many employers feel uncomfortable involving themselves in this intimate aspect of their employees' lives; conversely, many employees are hesitant to speak openly about their struggles, especially if their condition is affecting their job performance, or the stress of work is worsening their condition. 

"The inability of an employee to openly discuss the challenges of mental health and well-being can contribute to a cycle of distrust and fear, where neither employers nor employees want to talk about mental health issues," said Yudhishthu. 

It is important to eliminate this vicious cycle from your workplace, as ignoring employee mental health can result in problems for both you and your employees. 

Negative effects for the employer

  • It reduces trust between you and your employees.
  • It creates an unsupportive, distrustful company culture.
  • It can decrease employee performance and productivity.
  • It may provoke a discrimination claim.
  • It reflects poorly on your company and brand. 

Negative effects for the employee

  • It can decrease engagement, performance and productivity.
  • It can increase mental health issues.
  • The employee might not know whom to turn to for help.
  • The employee might feel a need to hide their struggles.
  • The employee might put themselves or their employer at risk. 

How to identify and monitor employee mental health

Mental health challenges can arise at any time, especially during a crisis, so it is important that you consistently monitor your employees and ensure that they are doing well. You can evaluate your employees by setting up recurring check-ins. 

"HR professionals should proactively reach out to their employees, checking in on how they are doing, and with a flexible lens, provide person-specific accommodations and education about employment policies that employees may benefit from," said Ogilvy. 

Approach these meetings in a way that makes your employees feel safe and secure with sharing their struggles and asking for help. Be attentive when speaking with your employees. There are many warning signs that can indicate someone is struggling. 

Ogilvy recommends looking for the following changes:  

  • Significant changes in one's eating or sleeping patterns
  • Difficulty concentrating or focusing
  • Increased fears and worries
  • Increased irritability
  • Worsening mood (increased sadness, hopeless, decreased mood)
  • Isolation or social withdrawal
  • Increased use of alcohol, tobacco or other substances
  • Suicidal thoughts that occur or worsen
  • Worsening chronic medical conditions
  • Worsening chronic mental health conditions
  • Decreased energy or increased fatigue
  • Decreased performance at work
  • Frequently missing work  

How to support employees' mental health

You and your human resources team play a vital role in supporting employee mental health. It is your responsibility to create an inclusive workplace and provide the necessary support for your team. We spoke with experts to identify the top ways you can support your employees. 

1. Educate your team.

Facilitating a supportive company culture starts with you, the employer. If you haven't done so already, host a companywide meeting to address the pandemic and how it can impact mental health. Educate your team on how to improve self-care, reduce workplace stress and avoid burnout. It can be beneficial to hire a health professional to speak about these topics and answer questions that employees may have.    

"Hiring a mental health professional to talk to employees outlining practices to promote good mental health and to point out signs that it may be time to seek professional help can empower employees to take action toward improving their own mental health," said Ames. 

2. Host regular check-in meetings.

Since mental wellness can quickly change, it is important to regularly check-in with your employees. After hosting a companywide meeting, Kara Lissy, clinical coordinator and psychotherapist at A Good Place Therapy, recommends that each department manager schedule one-on-one meetings with their team members. Here, the manager can discuss any follow-up questions the employee may have and review the company's mental health benefits in more detail. 

"Sometimes during large team gatherings people are hesitant to speak up and are more likely to confide in a one-on-one setting," said Lissy. "Making mental health a regular part of your check-ins can also help assuage some stigma associated with the topic." 

3. Encourage proper self-care.

Employees may be hesitant to take time off or speak up about any struggles they are experiencing. Promote the importance of self-care and lead by example so your employees focus on their mental health. Consider offering paid time off for mental wellness days or schedule team breaks so your employees can mentally reset. 

"Provide a companywide set time for all employees to take a formal 'walk' together, assuming they can move, and the weather allows," said Yudhishthu. "This ensures everyone collectively takes a 30-minute physical and mental break without returning to 10 unread emails and Slack messages." 

4. Facilitate clear communication.

Communication is key, especially during a time when many are working remotely. It is easy to fall into a pattern of "out of sight, out of mind," but having a remote team is even more of a reason to have clear, consistent communication. Communicate with your employees clearly and compassionately about your current company policies and mental health treatment options. If your employees have questions, know whom they can turn to for answers. 

"In light of such unprecedented times, HR professionals can help ensure employees have the support they may need by offering regular, open and consistent communication with their employees," said Ogilvy. "Many employees are coping with feeling overwhelmed and anxious as they adjust to working from home, a location that may not be optimal for their productivity due to conflicting responsibilities." 

5. Implement supportive workplace mental health policies and resources.

There are several mental health support resources available that you can offer your employees. For example, you should be offering your team an employee assistance program (EAP), bereavement leave, grief counseling, and a list of in-network network therapists, psychiatrists and mental health clinics.  

 "An essential benefit is an EAP, which gives employees access to expert, confidential assistance for issues such as substance abuse, relationship strife, financial problems and mental health conditions," said Yudhishthu. "These services are offered through an outside provider that connects employees with the appropriate resources and professionals. These programs enable companies to provide professional assistance to employees while allowing them confidentiality at work."  

Regardless of what mental health coverage and employee wellness resources you offer, make sure they are up to date and easy to access. 

"Supporting mental health in the workplace empowers employees to do top-notch work and to balance personal well-being needs," said Yudhishthu. "It's your responsibility to create the strategy and foster the environment that enables that."
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