LET'S TALK ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH ... IN THE WORKPLACE.

• Author: Griffin, Elle

I'm not one of those "winter people"--and this season felt harder than most. Sure, I've discovered some hacks to help me get through it: I love my sunlamp which increases the brightness of my office, I take walks during my lunch break to get outside and move my muscles, and I add smoked salmon to everything I eat to get more of those omega-3s. But none of that stops the fact that it's colder, it's darker, and it's snowier. If those environmental factors can affect the way I feel, then surely they can affect the way my team feels, too. And that's something I believe every manager needs to be aware of.

Mental health challenges can come in every possible varietal, from the acute-seasonal affective disorder or anxiety--to the chronic--depression, panic attacks, or mental illness. None of those things necessarily make an employee a bad employee, but all of those things require management to learn how to manage their employees individually and empathetically. Thankfully, Emma Penrod researches more ways to do that in her article, "Are The Employees Alright?" (p. 38).

It also means making sure employees are in the right place. The feeling of meaning, it turns out, is one of the most important factors to an employee. If the work an employee is doing doesn't feel aligned with the life goals they've set for themselves, or in tune with their values, they're bound to make a change. And fast. In fact, that's the number one reason millennials have become known for job hopping. See "Millennials Keep Quitting Their...