May is Mental Health Awareness Month. How will your company honor it?

How to Honor Mental Health Awareness Month

Mental health is a big deal to your employees. Whether your organization makes it a priority can make a big difference in how you’re perceived as an employer.?

Aside from the table stakes —?offering decent healthcare benefits that include mental health coverage, I have a few ideas to share:

• Establish peer support programs for people who have lived experience with mental health challenges
• Sponsor a community wellness event or a “lunch and learn” with a mental health theme
• Create a mental health resource corner for your employees
• Set up a gratitude wall!
• Carve out “stress-free zones” at your office where people can come for quiet contemplation and relaxation

“Steve, my kid has one of those at their preschool.”

Yes, and it works, doesn’t it? I’d love to hear other ideas you have to celebrate Mental Health Month. How does your company do it??

Secure 2.0 Retirement Savings Act

If you’re hiring young workers fresh out of school, listen up, because the SECURE 2.0 Retirement Savings Act is rolling out, and it gives you an opportunity, as an employer, to invest in your employees’ financial well-being.

The short story: As long as employees are making payments on their student loans, employers now have the option to match those student loan payments with 401K contributions. In this way, your younger employees can start planning for retirement along with paying off their loans, and this is a very enticing benefit in a time when BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has pronounced a “retirement crisis” in this country.

In general, benefits are key when candidates are weighing which role to take. As a recruiter for 25+ years, I always have an opportunity to discuss offer packages with job seekers, so I know just how much these things really do matter. Read more, and consider taking advantage of SECURE 2.0 as a part of the benefits package you offer.?

Recommended Reading

• From the San Francisco Business Times: Job interviews are a hotbed for lawsuits — and these common questions are illegal
• On Inc.: The 1 Thing That Will Determine If That New Hire Will Stay
• On HubSpot: AI in Hiring: Reducing Bias or Making It Worse?

High Salary Expectations vs Low Hiring Budgets

One of the biggest conflicts we’re seeing in the HR world these days is that job seekers have high expectations for compensation — and rightly so, with inflation where it is — but companies have low hiring budgets (partly for the same reason).

A 2024 CareerBuilder/HR Brew survey found that 64% of enterprise companies have decreased hiring budgets this year. (Though small businesses actually have higher budgets.) Within the enterprise arena, 20% of new roles filled pay $75k–$100k, and a third pay more than that. Sales and marketing are doing the most hiring, with IT and customer service in second place.?

Hiring is complicated, any way you slice it. As a recruiter at The Swan Group, I only pay so much attention to these kinds of headlines, because every individual company has its own dynamics and nuances. Still, it’s worth noting the struggles companies are having with hiring — and the value in partnering with a recruiter to solve them.

And if you would like some assistance and an added advantage in your hiring, reach out today. That’s what I am here for.?

Steve Swan

The Swan Group