From the most wonderful time of the year, to the most depressing – January is dark, drab, and dismal right? And it only gets worse when we come to Blue Monday, bringer of the very worst case of the Mondays possible.
But what and when is Blue Monday? Are the rumours true, and it’s a cheap marketing ploy, or is it a legitimate awareness day? Well, it may be that it’s both.
The concept of Blue Monday was popularised by the marketing department of a UK travel agency – where the idea of the ‘most depressing day of the year’ was used to flog holidays. Based on a formula that’s now agreed to be mostly nonsense, it calculated Blue Monday based on factors like poor weather, low motivation, failed resolutions, and time since Christmas.
Though the Blue Monday date varies, it’s generally agreed to fall on the 3rd Monday in January – a day distanced enough from Christmas, but still too far from the promises of spring. Make no mistake, we’re all aware of the numerous elements at play when it comes to people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing, but this is supposedly a day where things look particularly bleak.
First things first, mental health is a big challenge for organisations. 1 in 6 employees have mental health problems, and work is the biggest stressor in people’s lives – even more than debt. This can be seen in the way that 21% have called in sick due to stress, and 42% have considered quitting thanks to work-related stress.
So though you may despair at the idea of marketers exploiting mental health matters for commercial gain, are they meeting the greater good of spreading awareness?
Where 30% feel they can’t talk to their manager about stress, starting a wider conversation is still important. Because although we’ve all agreed that mental health matters, we’re still not great about speaking about it.
Blue Monday may be a myth, but the value of employee wellbeing isn’t. It’s good for your teams’ productivity, your organisation’s performance, and your general business success – so it’s really a win-win if you choose to prioritise your wellbeing strategy this year.
We’ve created a Wellbeing Survey that helps you measure employee wellness across four key dimensions, so you can understand the state of wellbeing in your teams – and find out what’s impacting it. That makes building a strategy easy!
So if you want a fast, trustworthy, affordable way to measure employee wellbeing (and want it for free!) try Qlearsite today:
5 Cranwood Street
Lower Ground Floor
London
EC1V 9GR
Tel: (+44) 0203 915 6200
Email: hello@qlearsite.com