Yesterday, I had a chance to talk with my member and as expected, he is struggling to cope with the pace of the project. The fast pace of this project and number of issues we are dealing everyday has caused him to question his own capability. I used to think like that before and of course I could relate to that. Luckily he reached out to me and I've advised him to proceed with his plan ie. to meet up with my GM and share his struggles. Honestly, I'm not sure how I could help him as I know the challenges awaits them whenever they decided to join this team. But as superior, what can you do to ease the process?
- Learn about mental illness - minimal thing you can do is to know how to spot early warning signs and manage stress. This at least will help you be more empathy and build the trust.
- Workplace stress is not a myth - Majority of cases I'm hearing recently, caused by work-related stress. Even today during our monthly safety talk, people posted about how their workload causing the stress and working from home somehow making this even messier. So, be supportive and don't discount stress causing from workplace as everyone has different stress capacity.
- Monitor your team performance - I'm not sure about others but whenever I notice my team slowly becomes silent during team discussion, I will quickly schedule a session with them. Why? Because sometimes people just don't want to bounce ideas anymore because they become absent minded.
- Create a safety environment - regular check-ins with your staffs could help to build a trust and mutual understanding. Work with the team to avoid social stigma about mental health.
There are lot more you can do to help but let's start with this first, okay?
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