Jonny Benjamin MBE & Neil Laybourn get down to Brass Tax at HMRC Wellbeing Conference

On 13 June 2017 Benefits and Credits (B&C) Operations hosted their annual wellbeing conference. This year’s theme was ‘Mental Health in the Workplace’ and around 135 people from across HMRC attended.

Neil and Jonny discuss mental health in the work place with Dorothy Brown CBE, Director of Operations at HMRC

“The best event I have attended on this subject, very powerful.”

Andy Farrar, Deputy Director North West Operations, opened the event by saying; “Mental health affects how we think, feel and act. It also helps determines how we handle stress, relate to others and make choices. It’s really important we de-stigmatise mental health in the workplace and openly start to understand and address issues to support all our colleagues.”

“The guest speakers were amazing and really inspiring.”

Delegates also heard from Jim Harra, HMRC’s Wellbeing Champion, who sent a video message showing his support for the conference. Jim said; “It is important to develop people’s understanding of mental health issues and how they need to be tackled in the workplace; to keep on removing the stigma around mental health and grow in confidence whether you’re a manager or a colleague of someone facing mental health problems or you have mental health problems yourself.”

Four HMRC colleagues then bravely shared their personal mental health journey. This session was particularly thought-provoking for everyone.

Jan O’Connor, an HMRC Mental Health Advocate, asked delegates to raise awareness of the advocacy service in their area.

“We thought we would come away from the conference with some great ideas but never imagined that we’d have 30 action plans to take forward!”

B&C Operations were one of 30 organisations who took part in Mind’s first ever Workplace Wellbeing Index – a survey to find out where we are doing well and where we could improve our approach to mental health in the workplace. We were subsequently given a bronze award, recognising that we have started the journey to better mental health at work by developing and implementing initiatives promoting mental health for staff. Heidi Kirkby, B&C Wellbeing co-ordinator, said; “I absolutely believe that silver and gold awards are achievable, but we need to be able to make improvements and make sure they are sustainable.”

Heidi Kirkby discussing the vital partnership and work done with mental health charity MIND recently

Heidi talked about the five key areas for improvement from the Mind survey results:

– physical workplace environment

– people management

– preventative measures and initiatives

– senior leadership buy-in and organisational accountability

– employee support tools and other means of support.

The delegates were asked to discuss the recommendations and feedback some of their ideas to Dorothy Brown and Andy Farrar.

Our external guest speakers were Jonny Benjamin and Neil Laybourn (The stranger on the bridge). Jonny shared his personal journey through mental health and talked about the events that have happened since their paths crossed in 2008. The talk touched everyone. Jonny and Neil told us that “attending the HMRC conference in Preston was interesting and educational for both of us, especially to hear the conversations in the room from passionate members of HMRC staff who were very concerned and pro-active about making a difference for the wellbeing and mental health of everybody in their organisation. We had some wonderful conversations after our talk and can see that this is an organisation that is really trying to do the right thing in this area.”

Testimonials from the conference

“The guest speakers were fantastic and very brave to discuss their mental health problems.”

“The guest speakers were amazing and really inspiring.”

“The best event I have attended on this subject, very powerful.”

“An incredibly worthwhile conference with fantastic table discussion.”

Next Steps

Heidi said; “We thought we would come away from the conference with some great ideas but never imagined that we’d have 30 action plans to take forward!”

The actions have now been condensed into six plans which Heidi, volunteers from a B&C Ops local mental health group, and B&C Ops Mental Health Advocates will look at and help drive the initiatives forward into the business. Improving the physical workplace environment has already started - the Preston Restack team are introducing breakout areas in the Guild Tower and the Unicentre. This is great news, the physical environment has a real impact on wellbeing – improve it and everyone benefits!

We’ll be providing regular updates on progress against all of the plans.