Hey, are you ok?
Spotify’s take on mental health and emotional wellbeing
A couple of weeks ago, we launched a new long-term strategy and plan for mental health and emotional wellbeing. We call it “Heart & Soul” and we do it to support a culture where employees look out for themselves and each other so that everyone can thrive and be their whole selves at work, even on days when life doesn’t feel all that peachy.
Less stigma, more heart and soul
Mental disorders, anxiety, and addiction affect most of us, either directly or through someone we love. And when we’re not doing well emotionally in our private life, we can’t do well at work either. One of our main objectives with the broad approach of this initiative is to create awareness, acceptance, knowledge, and sensitivity to issues like this. Sometimes we struggle and that’s ok. Increased levels of knowledge in this area means we’re all better equipped to both handle when we’re affected ourselves and be supportive when someone else is.
The best possible support and resources
The other half of our objective is to provide the best possible support and resources for employees when they need it. We have set up a broad program, covering all the bases and levels of support an employee may need during their career.
Awareness and training
We have a wide range of training for both employees and managers, on subjects like inclusion, unconscious bias, warning signs for substance abuse and how to support someone who suffers from it. We also kicked this initiative off with a whole week of seminars on different mental health and emotional wellbeing themes. Everything from yoga on the rooftop to an important look into what it means to live with bipolar disorder.
Professional support and treatment
Our Employee Assistance Program “All the Feels” is open to all employees, we use it to seek professional support and treatment, and stay anonymous when we wish to. Substance abuse requires its own take and we have another program for that.
Employee Engagement
We have Heart & Soul ambassadors all over the organization who both drive awareness and take their organization’s perspective back to the steering group so we can scale and improve as we go along. These ambassadors, and other engaged employees, have also taken lots of initiatives like start up activities, employee resource groups, and forums to reach out in. We encourage and support all of this, and part of the initiative is to build on and enable organic support like this.
Self-care
We also have a large and live database of different tools and resources for self-care, most of it is assembled and managed by our employee ambassadors.
We have seen an amazing engagement from our employees on this subject, which feels promising for the future. The entire initiative can be scaled and localized as we move along. So all employees can feel included, thrive, and be their best authentic selves in life and at work.
We believe we can make a difference here, so we’ve set this up for the long term.
