Making Mental Health Awareness a Priority Every Day
Every year, millions of people across the globe are faced with some element of mental illness. It affects individuals, families, communities and organizations, and it is estimated that workplace stress alone costs over $190 billion in North America. That number grows exponentially when you consider the global impacts.
It’s such an important topic and yet it’s very difficult to speak about. There is a stigma associated with mental illness that must be broken. We have to stand together to support one another not only when someone is dealing with mental illness, but when an individual begins to demonstrate signs of struggle.
Unfortunately, workplace burnout has become common for many. We’ve experienced a new way of work that has clear benefits, but we can’t overlook the health impacts of having our work and home lives essentially becoming one. As a leader of people, this is something top of mind for me and others alike. We spend a great deal of time with our people and need to be more aware of signs of burnout, workplace stress or other mental health challenges.
We have an obligation to equip our leaders to notice the signs and be prepared to engage in a conversation with those who may be suffering so they can direct them to the proper resources. With the talent landscape continuing to get hotter and more competitive, organizations who don’t make mental wellness a priority risk missing out on great talent and an increase in turnover. People want to work for an organization that values them and puts their well-being first.
So how can you get started?
- Make mental health a priority in your organization. Talk about it openly and frequently to begin removing the stigma.
- Provide proper education and training to enable your leaders and individuals to notice potential signs, facilitate conversations and guide people to resources available to them and their families.
- Offer wellness benefits specifically addressing mental health and ensure people know how to access and leverage them. Then, measure the utilization and make modifications as necessary to ensure their success.
- Provide programs that minimize the potential for burnout, such as unlimited PTO, company-wide shutdowns, flexible work schedules, Work from Anywhere programs and more.
- Ensure mental health is part of your ongoing wellness strategy. Don’t wait for a single day or month to make it a priority.
At SmartRecruiters, we prioritize well-being and offer benefits, programs and education that support our people and their families. We speak openly about burnout, workplace stress and mental health. We have created a culture of transparency and trust where people feel supported and encouraged to speak up and seek assistance when needed. It’s one of the many reasons I am proud to work for this organization.
Just remember, you don’t need to have all the answers, provide the “perfect” programs or be the experts on mental health. Demonstrating support, openness, compassion and a desire to listen is a great start. So don’t delay, now is the perfect time to take action. Your people will thank you and so will their families.
By Lisa Sterling
SmartRecruiters Chief People Officer
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Working at SmartRecruiters

Teaser
Employee ExperienceContent Type
BlogPublish date
05/10/2022
Summary
When companies talk about their mission and values, it can be difficult to tell if they’re just well-intentioned words or if they actually resonate with their customers and employees. At SmartRecruiters, we live ours every day, and it’s apparent in the way our teams work together and through our impact in the market. So who are we and what is important to us? As SmartRecruiters CEO Jerome Ternynck has shared, our mission is to connect people to jobs they love by helping organizations more effectively attract talent and helping people find roles that are perfect for them. “People who work at SmartRecruiters share a few core values. The first one is Impact, and that speaks to us being very focused on our mission. The second is As One, which is about us working together as a team. The third value is CEO, or people being able to own their job and deliver what they're expected to deliver with full autonomy and full empowerment. The fourth is Smarter and that is about how we are able to take the learnings that we get from the market to actually improve ourselves. When you join SmartRecruiters as an organization, it's really the mission you take on and that's a mission to help us elevate recruiting and make it a better world.”To get a true understanding of what these mean, let’s take a look at just a few examples of how our values have become reality: Impact Since the tragic invasion of Ukraine, our colleagues in Krakow, Poland immediately began donating supplies, transporting people across borders and even welcoming displaced families into their homes. Soon, more than 4 million people will be looking for jobs, and we're proud to be working on additional initiatives that will help our customers quickly hire Ukrainians. Our Founder and CEO Jerome spoke to Bloomberg News about the steps we're taking to make a difference. Watch the clip here. As OneBehind every project completed and product launched at SmartRecruiters is a cross-functional team that made it happen. From our weekly Delights to quarterly product releases to the launching of this new career center, every success has been possible because we're doing it together. CEOThe ability for SmartRecruiters employees to work autonomously and take ownership of their careers has led to several 10-year anniversaries in 2022, including that of Michal Nowak. Michal joined the company as the seventh engineer on staff and is now a VP of Engineering. Read his story of career advancement and growth at SmartRecruiters here.SmarterSmartRecruiters recently received the highest recognition of Strategic Leader in the 2022 Fosway Group 9-Grid for Talent Acquisition for the second year in a row. Since 2019 we've been increasing our position by meeting the needs of complex enterprises and achieving high levels of customer impact and satisfaction through continuous improvement in our offerings. Read more about what this recognition means here.---If you can relate to these four company values and ways of working, we would love to see your application! Take a moment to search jobs and apply or set up job alerts and join our talent community if you don't see a fit today. As new positions open up, you'll be the first to know.

Teaser
Career GrowthContent Type
BlogPublish date
05/10/2022
Summary
Ten years in tech feels like an eternity, but I joined SmartRecruiters in April 2012 and haven’t looked back. I was engineer number seven at the company, and we were just setting up an office in Krakow. That’s how my journey began. Career Growth The best part about working here has been the ability to change my career multiple times. I went from being an engineer in one of our product teams to building internal tooling for other engineers and then finally into management, where I was able to grow my team. One month ago, around my 10th anniversary, I was promoted to VP of Engineering. Changing my role and focus every few years was an incredible learning experience. My organization grew over time, and now I have a chance to develop new engineering leaders. Impactful Work Working at SmartRecruiters is unique because we are here to connect people with jobs, and I don't think there are a lot of problems out there that have such a massive impact on the global economy and people's lives. If we do our job well, a hospital will hire talented doctors, a school will get great teachers, and millions of job-seekers will apply and get through the interview process with less stress. This is something that keeps a lot of us here. The recruitment industry has a lot of opportunities for improvement, and we believe technology can do that. If you are a technologist, this is the perfect place to be. The company structure ensures you directly impact the product. You can see how the features you build immediately make a difference in the users' life. It is the perfect blend of product management, design, and engineering working together to solve a challenging problem. Leadership When people choose to stay in or leave a job, an important factor is leadership. I’ve been happy at SmartRecruiters for so long because I've never met a person like our CEO Jerome, who can share a vision so vividly and talk about the company's direction with such passion and clarity. He is also a product person, so it's a perfect mix of having a charismatic CEO who really understands digital products and cares about them deeply. Diversity We also have a very diverse group of R&D leaders. Our CTO, the VP of Product, one of the VPs of Engineering, and the Director of Design are all accomplished women leaders who are amazing at their jobs. They really do care about diversity and inclusion and ensuring that they are continuing to bring in even more diverse talent to drive our mission forward. #AsOne One of SmartRecruiters values is “As One,” and you really feel it here. It's not an empty phrase. The scale-up experience can be overwhelming. We are growing fast, experimenting a lot and trying new things all the time. Lots of things are in-flight, which can be a stressful experience. One way to mitigate this is to have a strong team that cares about each other. And that has been the case for me. I am surrounded by very kind, supportive people who have invested a lot in me over the years. Job Opportunities As we continue to scale, we’re hiring engineers for our R&D teams in EMEA. If you are interested in joining SmartRecruiters, we are remote-first but also have offices located in Krakow and Berlin. I invite you to search our openings below and connect with me on LinkedIn if you have any questions. Click below to search for jobs in Research & Development By Michal Nowak SmartRecruiters VP of Engineering
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