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In honor of World Mental Health day and our organisation's focus on #selfcare, I've opened a new channel in our Rocketchat called "How are you?" It's meant to give coworkers a judgement-free place to talk about how they are doing, how work is going, how we can help each other, how the organisation can facilitate selfcare better etc.
@Gina Great idea!
Do you have intentions to advertise that channel somehow, or to provide some form of friendly incentive to get people join channel?
It is hard enough to make people familiar with unusual concepts, but getting people to use such an opportunity is another challenge. I think especially when it is related to opening up in some form.
Of course people should not be forced into doing anything. But reducing obstacles might help those who would benefit the most from such an offer.
@floppy As our Rocketchat admin, I just yeeted them all into the channel. 
Of course getting them to share is a whole different story. I kicked off the discussion by sharing a bit about my mental bandwidth being low lately, how I'm grateful that I'm able to bring my dog to work, and that I'd love to have a conversation about facilitating collective self-care (something the organisation has been discussing for a while now).
@Gina Haha, very well! Being a good example helps a lot I think.
Love the term "mental bandwidth" for cognitive load btw!
@Gina How do/would you overcome the "anything you say can and will be used against you" problem?
I don't doubt *your* intent to create a judgment-free place and it may even work in your org. F.e. choosing ethical, security and privacy over money isn't exactly standard afaik. Being ideological driven non-profit also helps.
But most orgs are for-profit and thus competition, including among co-workers, is the norm.
Because of that *I* wouldn't share anything
I like your initiative nonetheless :)
@FreePietje True, that is difficult. Honestly I would have never discussed anything personal at my previous consultancy job. Coworkers were competition and management needed to see you succeed, not complain. It sucked though. Made me feel like a robot instead of a human. I understand that the organisation where I work at is fairly unique. At the same time I think we should slowly try to normalize human behavior even in the most corporate offices. I don't think I can go back to being a robot.
@Gina That's a great idea, it would be good to normalize talking about mental health and selfcare. Did coworkers join in?
At our place I started a 'Good Vibes' doc for people to share good things that have happened. But I realise now it doesn't really leave a space for people to chat about things that aren't going so well.