In an industry first, the results of our original, 2024 HR Mental Wellbeing Survey revealed alarming rates of anxiety and depression amongst HR professionals. Coupled with low levels of support, this data highlighted a potential crisis in HR mental health and wellbeing that could also impact organisational functioning. Here we discuss how professional support provided through regular HR supervision sessions is essential for HR mental health and wellbeing.
Barriers to seeking help
As a profession that provides support to others, it can be difficult for HR professionals to acknowledge when they themselves are struggling and to access support. Without the culture of supervision that is present in other people professions, HR are unused to attending regularly to their own learning and support needs.
Failure to notice their own signs and symptoms of stress can be too easy when life is busy. And an overriding sense of responsibility for others can often lead HR professionals to push on, despite feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
Overworking, staying up late to check emails, or drinking high volumes caffeine or alcohol might feel like they help. And in small doses they can. But doing so can also rob you of your time to recover from the pressures of work. And this can lead to more stress rather than offering solutions.
Other ways of coping, such as avoiding thinking about work challenges, putting them off, spending lots of time gaming, shopping or watching tv may also feel like they help you unwind. But actually doing so can mean you don't resolve the issues you are struggling with and this will raise stress levels further.
To find out more about how your ways of coping can keep stress going and what you can do about it check out our blog.
Stereotypes of what it means to be an HR professional can also create additional barriers to seeking help and support. For example, you may tell yourself ‘I should be able to cope’ or ‘I should know what to do’. You may feel embarrassed to admit you need to ask for support or use the services you provide for other employees. Or you may feel unable to ask colleagues for help, telling yourself that they are too busy and not wanting to impose on them. As a consequence of these ways of thinking you place additional pressure on yourself to keep pushing on alone and as a consequence experience even more stress.
HR supervision: Support for HR mental health and wellbeing?
Supervision for HR professionals can mitigate against these barriers to seeking help.
Scheduling regular resilience supervision sessions ensures that HR professionals have the support they need, when they need it, without having to ask for it.
The formative and restorative functions of supervision allow supervisees to manage interpersonal challenges, overcome isolation, and problem-solve ethical dilemmas and interpersonal dynamics. This reduces reliance on less helpful coping strategies, providing the confidence to manage challenges effectively and maintain personal and professional resilience.
Supporting HR to remain mentally healthy is essential for reducing HR stress and burnout and can contribute to a culture of employee wellbeing and resilience across the whole organisation.
Key features of HR Supervision
Managing interpersonal challenges
A key function of supervision is to provide space to process the difficult and distressing aspects of a role or job.
HR professionals routinely face challenging interpersonal situations, such as delivering bad news or dealing with conflict. But they are rarely offered support to deal with these experiences. Failure to process the psychological and emotional fallout of regular exposure to emotionally challenging material makes them increasingly vulnerable to stress and burnout.
The safe space provided by supervision allows you to step back from such situations, to reflect and make sense of them and, crucially, to leave them at work.
When you have been able to deal with troubling experiences and unsettling feelings at work, you will be better able to make the most of your time away from work, to recover and recuperate. This helps you to remain resilient and to return to work feeling refreshed and motivated.
Overcoming isolation
HR roles can often be isolated. Whether working in a large HR team or as an independent consultant, when everyone is busy it can often be difficult to find the support and connection with others you need.
Establishing ‘emotional detachment’ from the challenges of work is a strategy many HR professionals adopt. And it can be helpful to a point. But it can also be counterproductive, isolating you from your peers and preventing you seeking help when you need it. It also creates a barrier to acknowledging and processing emotions. Troubling emotions and experiences can then stockpile. And this increases the potential for mental health issues to develop, such as vicarious trauma and anxiety.
Supervision provides connection and an emotionally safe outlet for these emotions. It offers opportunity to engage rather than to detach, and to collaborate in finding effective ways of dealing with challenges and minimising their negative impact on your wellbeing.
Finding solutions to ethical dilemmas, interpersonal dynamics
Supervision supports HR professionals to explore and resolve the many ethical dilemmas inherent in their work. It provides space to think through and understand interpersonal dynamics at work and to enhance self-care skills.
When you are stressed, we feel under threat and it can be difficult to think clearly or find solutions. The psychologically safe space created by regular resilience supervision calms the stress response allowing supervisees space to reflect on and process problems.
By examining ethical dilemmas, reflecting on challenges and set-backs, supervisees find ways to manage and grow through their experiences.
Maintaining mental health
By ensuring they have access to ongoing support before they reach crisis point, regular, scheduled resilience supervision protects HR professionals from developing mental health problems such as stress, anxiety and depression.
This proactive approach allows you to identify and manage challenges early. It supports you to develop the psychological and emotional tools you need to prevent chronic stress and burnout taking hold.
In dealing effectively with work challenges and maintaining your own mental health, you will be more available to employees when they need support. And this can actively promote a culture of wellbeing that is central to individual and organisational resilience.
At Ultimate Resilience we have seen the benefits of supervision both in clinical services and also for other people professionals, such as HR. We have also seen the unique pressures and demands faced by HR professionals and the impact these can have on their mental health. So we firmly believe that a change in culture of HR is required to provide HR professionals with the support they need to deal with the challenges of their role.
We see HR supervision as the solution. Get in touch to find out how we can help you and your team.
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