7 soft skills to support mental health at work
Burnout from too much work. Anxiety over looming deadlines. Overwhelmed from feeling like you don’t have the skills to do your job. Our workplaces can have a huge impact on our mental health.
At any given time, more than one in 10 workers are absent due to anxiety, depression or burnout. Globally, an estimated 12 billion working days are lost annually to depression and anxiety, costing US$1 trillion in lost productivity.
The reality is mental health is a complex issue with no quick fix. But there are positive steps both employers and employees can take to support mental health at work, and it means resources are closer than you might think.
As humans, we have a valuable toolkit filled with skills we can draw on to support mental health at work, both for ourselves and our coworkers.
These are our soft skills, or "human skills".
In this article, we'll explore how soft skills can support mental health at work and which soft skills you should specifically focus on.
How do soft skills support mental health?
Building our soft skills is crucial to supporting mental health at work. Soft skills like communication, empathy, and resilience are essential in fostering a supportive and productive work environment.
For instance, effective communication can help us express feelings and concerns, while empathy can aid in understanding and supporting colleagues going through tough times. Resilience can help in bouncing back from setbacks and maintaining a positive outlook. We can draw on these skills to not only help us manage our own mental health, but contribute to a supportive culture within teams and the organisation as a whole. By developing and nurturing these soft skills, we can better cope with stress, enhance our interpersonal relationships, and create a more balanced and happy work life.
So, how do we develop these soft skills? Through skill development courses. These courses, like those offered by Maxme, provide structured and inspiring learning where individuals can learn and practise these skills. High quality skill development courses cover theoretical knowledge, practical exercises, and feedback sessions to help learners understand and improve their soft skills. They also boost your confidence in being able to apply these newly learned skills on the job.
For employers, investing in soft skill development has enormous benefits, particularly when it comes to the mental health of employees. Research has shown that investment in mental health has a positive return on investment, ranging from an average of $2.30 upwards for each dollar invested.
So, which soft skills should we focus on to optimise mental wellbeing?
Soft skills to support mental health at work
1. Self-awareness
Self-awareness is "conscious knowledge of one's character, feelings, motives, and desires."
In other words, when you’re self-aware, you know your strengths and weaknesses, why you react a certain way, and what drives you – all of which is essential for your mental health.
Self-awareness doesn't come naturally to everyone, but for those struggling with their mental health, it’s a crucial soft skill to focus on. By honing these skills through skills development courses, you can understand what your triggers are, and what makes you feel stressed. The more self-awareness we have, the more we’re able to anticipate what will impact our mental health, and develop techniques to enable us to respond in ways that lower our stress and improve our mental wellbeing.
With self-awareness, we can focus on our strengths, raising happiness levels by helping us feel more energised and satisfied in what we do.
Being self-aware can also help us support the mental health of others. It can help us tap into our strengths, such as empathy and listening, while showing us where to develop our soft skills to become more supportive leaders or team members.
2. Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to understand and manage our own emotions as well as recognise and influence the feelings of others.
In simpler terms, EQ is about being aware of your own emotions and how they can affect your actions, as well as being able to understand and empathise with others' emotions.
When you break it down, it's easy to see why EQ is one of the most essential soft skills for supporting mental health at work.
Increasing emotional intelligence helps us communicate more effectively in our interactions with others at work. It allows us to empathise with others, which helps us support them in times of need.
With a high EQ, we can handle difficult people tactfully and diplomatically, lowering coworkers' tension and boosting a positive culture throughout the organisation. This all contributes to reducing workplace stress, anxiety, and burnout.
Emotional intelligence is also a valuable tool for leaders. According to research by Way Ahead, the NSW Mental Health Association, 7 in 10 Australians wouldn’t tell their employer about a mental health condition. This issue of employees feeling unsafe to speak up at work shows a need for emotionally intelligent leaders. Leaders with high emotional intelligence are better able to create a psychologically safe environment where people feel they can disclose their mental health challenges and support each other.
3. Empathy
Empathy is the ability to show compassion for another person and better understand how others are feeling.
When it comes to supporting mental health at work, this is the big one – it allows us to put ourselves in other people's shoes so we can see and feel from their perspective, and thoughtfully respond to their feelings, thoughts, and circumstances.
Empathy, a key interpersonal skill, enhances our ability to understand and support others. It fosters stronger, more supportive relationships among coworkers and between employees and leaders, creating a more positive work environment.
While some people are naturally more empathetic, anyone can build empathy as a skill through a soft skill development course.
4. Resilience
Resilience is our ability to withstand adversity, bounce back and grow when things go wrong or challenge us. With resilience, you have the mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and ability to adjust to internal and external demands. Being resilient doesn’t mean you don't experience stress, emotional upheaval, and suffering. Instead, it gives you the skills to work through challenges and emerge stronger than before.
Resilience is essential to our mental wellbeing. A study published in 2022 found that people with resilience, coping capabilities, and emotional intelligence are more likely to have better overall wellbeing and life satisfaction than those with lower resilience.
The good news is that we can learn resilience. Our instinct is often to run away from things that scare us or to avoid change. But by reframing challenges as opportunities for growth, we can build our resilience muscle and emerge stronger and more capable.
5. Listening
Have you ever noticed how you feel more stressed when you feel misunderstood? Or how there's more conflict at work when people just aren't listening to each other?
Listening is a simple yet powerful tool for mental health at work. When someone comes to you for support, listening with empathy can be calming, reassuring, and even healing. The key to listening is doing it with the intention of trying to understand rather than formulating the quickest response. We need to really hear the meaning of their words and be curious about what is affecting this person.
But listening isn't just important when someone confides in us—it's an essential skill in every interaction. Great listeners positively impact how people feel after speaking to them. They understand where people come from and build rapport and trust with others. This means the simple act of listening better can help us build stronger connections with those we work with, which can help boost our happiness and mental health at work.
6. Communication
Communication is a crucial soft skill in every workplace. It’s the key to working effectively with others, which helps to reduce stress, improve relationships, and make us feel more fulfilled – a powerful boost for our mental health.
Being a good communicator doesn't mean you need to be a smooth talker or brilliant presenter; it means you’re able to express yourself and get your message across to others. This is a vital skill when you’re struggling with your mental health and want to seek help. With good communication skills, you'll be better equipped to talk to your leaders when you’re struggling, and clearly express how you’re feeling in ways they can understand. From there, they’ll be better placed to help.
7. Self Regulation
You can't avoid strong emotions in the workplace, especially in the face of stress, adversity or uncertainty. Feelings of disappointment, fear, anger and frustration are just as common at work as home. But there are methods to help you manage these emotions before they start impacting your mental health.
The key lies in the soft skill of self-regulation.
Self-regulation relates to how you control your thoughts and behaviours, and contributes to your overall emotional intelligence (EQ). Self-regulation means you don't let your emotions take control of the situation but instead recognise that you can choose how to respond to something despite how you feel.
For example, one of the top skills in self-regulation is knowing when to give yourself space. This might simply mean pausing and taking ten seconds to breathe before you react. Research shows that deep breathing and other breathing techniques help to calm us down during moments of stress.
If we can regulate our responses to stressful situations, this not only benefits their personal wellbeing but also contributes to a more stable, less reactive work environment and better team dynamics. For example, when we’re in the middle of conflict, self-regulation helps us stay calm and stops us from saying things that might hurt others.
How to power up your soft skills
Increasing your skills to support mental health at work starts with self-awareness. You need to understand yourself first: What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What triggers your stress? How well do you self-regulate your emotions?
Once you have a foundation of self-awareness, you can start working on the other top human skills for mental health, such as resilience, listening, and more.
The best way to get started is with skills development courses.
For example, Maxme’s Human Skills Programs target specific areas of human skill development for teams and organisations. For individuals and small workplace groups, the Maxme Human Skills Academy is a selection of our most popular soft skills development courses delivered 100% virtually. Our exclusive human skill development app, Hodie, supports these courses. The app offers fun, interactive learning covering critical skills you need to thrive and be happy in your career, including the skills discussed in this article.
The important thing is to treat soft skills development as a lifelong process and something you should always be doing. The sooner you start to work on your soft skills, the sooner you can use them to support your mental health and those around you.
Start developing your human skills today! Simply download the Hodie app, or explore Maxme’s broader menu of Products & Programs for organisations and individuals alike.
Prefer to talk through your options? Contact us at any time.