Mental health support at Sourcegraph
What is mental health?
The World Health Organization defines mental health as:
“A state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”
Long-term goals
- Normalize the discussion and reduce stigma about mental health across the Sourcegraph team.
- Increase access to and awareness of existing mental health resources for the Sourcegraph team.
- Understand how our asynchronous culture can contribute to improved mental health for team members, specifically by decreasing the total number of synchronous meetings for team members.
- Increase documentation about mental health management resources in our handbook by collaborating and sharing strategies and tools that work.
Mental health roadmap
This section will be used in future wellbeing planning as a brainstorm list for wellbeing initiatives.
| Sequence order | Session/Event | Structure | Audience | Proposed Timeline | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | #mental-health Slack channel for events, resources | Slack forum | All team members; opt-in | June 2021 | Complete |
| 2 | External Speaker on Mental Health (recorded) | Fireside chat with Q&A | All team members | July 2021 | Complete |
| 3 | Modern Health launch | Employee assistance program | All team members | August 2021 | Complete |
| 4 | Modern Health information session (recorded) | Company-wide information session | All team members; opt-in | August 2021 | Complete - view here |
| 5 | Async mental health book club | Async book club | All team members | October 2021 | In progress: sourcing ideas |
| 6 | Leadership Panel: Managing and Identifying Burnout and Fatigue on your team, sharing vulnerabilities | Internal panel | Managers+ above | Date TBD | Not yet started |
| 7 | Manager Panel: Enabling your teams to take time off | Internal Panel | Managers+ above | Date TBD | Not yet started |
Did we miss anything?
Leave recommendations or suggestions for future programming here.
Resources
Sourcegraph-specific toolkits:
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Manager Wellbeing One Pager - For people managers to begin unpacking how to have conversations around mental wellbeing and to model best practices in regeneration and taking time off.
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Employee Wellbeing One Pager - For teammates to assess if they might be falling into patterns of burnout, and how to triage effectively by escalating to your manager and others.
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How to use Modern Health: Sourcegraph Demo - For teammates to understand more about our Employee Assistance Program, Modern Health.
Preventative resources:
- Burnout Index Test: Global IT Burnout Index - Take a quick quiz to see how at-risk for burnout you might be.
- LifeLabs Learning: Start/stop rituals - preventing burnout - Identify rituals you can use to separate your home-life from your work-life.
- American Psychological Association: The Road to Resilience – Prevent burnout by building your resilience to stress and adversity.
- Mayo Clinic: Job Burnout: How to Spot it and Take Action – Find out if you’re at risk of workplace burnout and what to do if you are.
Resources to identify and triage burnout:
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Inc.: 12 Stages of Burnout - Understand the different stages of burnout, and identify if you may be falling into one area.
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Ted Talks: 10 Ted Talks for when you’re feeling burnt out - Listen to others as they navigate the waters of burnout and how to obtain resilience.
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Skills Camp: Virtual class on burnout/mental health - Take this interactive class to enhance your skill set to support your mental health.
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The Caring Techie: Declaring War Against Burnout - Read this article series to identify burnout, process it, and become resilient from experiencing it.
What if I need additional support?
If at any point you feel as though you or your teammate is in crisis or dealing with a mental health issue which you are unsure of how to deal with, please reach out to any member of the People Ops team immediately either on Slack or confidentially at People-ops@sourcegraph.com. We will work with you to assess the situation and triage it accordingly with proper resources and support.