After two years of navigating the global pandemic, mental health needs continue to take center stage in the conversations about workplace wellness.

Organizations have worked hard to respond to their team members’ stress and anxiety by supporting individual self-care initiatives like meditation, time off, or offering wellness and exercises classes or memberships. While this effort is well intended, new research shows that the emphasis on self-care may undermine collective employee wellness. We are all social beings and finding our way to wellness alone can feel isolating. This HBR article proposes a new approach to wellness—moving it from a solo endeavor to “taking care of one another. ” Here are two of the key principles they showcase for creating the foundation for workplace well-being:

1. Frame adversity as belonging to the collective: talk about emotions openly and candidly.
2. Create and nurture relational pauses: designed and orchestrated moments for meaningful connections between team members often prompted with a simple question like “How is our work affecting us as human beings?”

When we actively listen together, our individual struggles become a collective opportunity to heal. It builds community, safety, and inclusion, and creates a place for organization wellness.