India Inc goes all out to keep staff mentally healthy | Economic Times

Wellness officers, Covid buddies, grief counsellors and mental wellness advocates — companies are assigning special roles to managers and trainers to counsel, console and coach employees unsettled by the second wave of the pandemic.Covid in its second wave has infected millions and claimed the lives of thousands. Companies have taken steps to support employees who were infected and the families of employees died due to Covid. With the wave now on the decline, mental healing of employees is also top on their agenda.Among them, Schneider Electric, HCL Technologies, Ashok Leyland, Dabur, CEAT, KPMG, Standard Chartered Bank, Mindtree, Accenture and Tech Mahindra are busy drawing up new initiatives that spread across leadership to the bottom.Tech Mahindra has appointed a ‘wellness officer’ and Schneider Electric has assigned 'Covid Buddies' and ‘grief counsellors’ to talk to and comfort colleagues. Marico is training leaders to double up as ‘wellness coaches’.In the second wave, all the function heads at Mindtree are now acting as ‘welfare officers’ for their teams. HCL has put together a 300-person team known as ‘Covengers’ to help employees deal with mental stress and anxiety. Truecaller has four-day work weeks entire May so that employees can focus on mental wellbeing.KPMG, Dabur, Ashok Leyland and Standard Chartered are focusing more on training their leaders and employees through third-party counsellors to handle the stress. There are also webinars with experts on topics like mindful exercises.CEAT is launching an ‘On Road to Recovery’ programme for Covid-afflicted employees with the help of an expert (Juno Clinic) to regain physical and mental fitness levels.“The company provides training to its people who wish to register as mental wellness advocates to assist their fellow colleagues with honest and safe conversations about mental health,” said an Accenture spokesperson.Accenture has internally trained more than 1,000 employees who also double up as mental wellness advocates. These advocates conduct ‘checking-in’ with at least three colleagues every day.Tech Mahindra has developed an in-house app, BeMe (BetterMe), to mentor and coach managers on improving communication with their teams. “The wellness officer is going to design a holistic wellness value proposition for Tech Mahindra among other things,” said Harshvendra Soin, its global chief people officer and head of marketing.“The second and more devastating wave of the Covid pandemic not only poses a significant risk to physical health of individuals, but is also known to be taking a heavy toll on mental health,” said Dabur India executive director-HR Biplab Baksi.Starting this month, Dabur is organising special webinars with practitioners to address matters like how the mind functions, why do we suffer, what is mindfulness, how to be balanced, being happy and stress free.A Covid buddy at Schneider counsels not only the employees impacted by the virus, but also their families. With the help of grief counselling efforts, the leaders along with external senior counsellors are helping employees and their families realise that they are not alone, said chief HR officer India and South Asia Rachna Mukherjee.Mindtree is conducting focus group discussions to support employees in crisis, dealing with bereavement, expert counselling sessions and webinars to learn coping mechanisms for panic, anxiety and help build resilience.Standard Chartered has recently started a Mental Health First Aiders programme (through MHFA England). This is expected to enable employees to identify mental health concerns in others, encourage them to break down barriers and listen in a non-judgemental way.KPMG is ensuring that teams take wellness breaks to relieve fatigue, along with scheduled mandatory four-day long weekends.