Today there’s a lot of talk about mental health in the workplace. COVID has taken a measurable toll on people’s lives and their capacity to cope and remain resilient. Depression, fatigue, and loss productivity are only a few outcomes for those struggling to keep jobs, do more with less, parent, and work from home. How are people responding? Prescriptions for anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, and insomnia have increased by double digits.
Medical intervention has its place, and companies should be applauded for offering Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) and other counseling services through their benefits program. However, there’s less medically evasive solutions that can help workers not only to cope but find ways to thrive in the new normal. The best tool in the tool life kit may be coaching.
Many times, people don’t need a pill to calm their nerves, they need a coach to help them see a different picture: set a vision, strategize on options, develop a plan, learn new tools, adopt a different mindset, find support, and partner with them through the journey to the opposite side of the continuum of mental well-being. Many people already have the solution inside of themselves. They need a coach to help them untangle the thoughts into a well-conceived plan or share some tools that will make them the master of their lives.
I applaud those businesses that offer coaching to their employees as an alternative to medical intervention. If your company doesn’t offer free or nominal fee coaching, there’s nothing stopping you from hiring your own coach. Coaching isn’t therapy, it’s targeted support. Do you need a pill, or do you really need a coach?
About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional life coach with an extensive background in leadership, sales, and business consulting. She has a passion to help people be the hero of their own life story. She administers assessments, designs, and facilitates workshops, and coaches individuals, teams, and businesses. You can learn more about Sandra or engage her as your coach by reaching out to her at coach.sandra.dillon@gmail.com or by visiting her website at www.shinecrossings.com
Leadership & Life Coaching 
Great article, people look for medicine rather than exploring first what the cause of their stress is and then find ways to eliminate the cause and with this they will eliminate the stress. Coaching and counselling is the best way to start to address these types of issues!
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Certainly a hot topic to be talked about more in these post pandemic days ahead.
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I’m liking the trend about coaching being made available at work. We started this recently for wellbeing coaching – still a long way to go in recognising challenges, but certainly a start and to know about the number of companies that have started to offer over the last year is quite reassuring
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