Let’s Talk about Mental Health and Safety at work

Let’s Talk about Mental Health and Safety at work

40% that’s 2 in 5 employees report experiencing poor mental health symptoms related to work in the last year. 23% in the last month.

If this was physical safety, it would not be acceptable.

Doing the right thing for employees is also doing the right thing for your business.

To innovate, people have to feel safe.

If you want innovation you need ideas… 

and to get ideas you need happy, healthy people who feel supported and psychologically safe.

But in the report ‘Take Ownership’ The Mental Health at Work 2019 summary report by business in the community the figures are not good.

If you need innovation you need ideas and to unlock those ideas, you must support your people.

If people are to have ideas then they must have the time, the courage, the permission and the skills to have those ideas.

Having ideas takes extra effort and can be exposing. You may not have had the courage to say: “I don’t know” or “What do you think?”

It takes time to have good ideas and time is something that is the main blocker to innovation.  When we are overloaded and are too busy to think, not only do we miss out on opportunities, but we also are potentially damaging people and causing psychological injury.

There is a direct correlation between people’s ability to think creatively and their mental health and general well-being. If you or your people are stressed, tired and anxious then you and they will not be able to have fresh ideas. 

We need to have our basic needs met before we can move up to the higher purpose of challenging the status quo.

If people are to challenge the status quo and have ideas to make things better then they need to be psychologically safe, happy, well, supported and engaged.

Up until now the fields of HR, Talent Management, Retention, Quality, Safety, Heath – Well Being and Innovation have all been separated but they are all part of one strategic challenge and that is that is to make sure that people feel safe and happy at work every day.

We don’t just want to survive at work we want to thrive – we don’t want a proposition that is “come and work for us because we will enhance your life”.

As Ian Stuart, CEO of HSBC said

“There are no trade-offs with our commercial gains.  We have made it a strategic priority of having a culture of Well Being where mental health is cherished and spoken about regularly”

“As leaders we know how we behave is how our people will behave”

At HSBC they have instigated a way of working where people do not come in on the Friday before their holiday or the Monday of their return so that they have time to plan and that enables them to really enjoy their holiday.

There are so many complex reasons that any of us at any time can feel stress and feel anxious:

·       Low Self Esteem

·       Financial concerns

·       Weight

·       Grief

·       Relationships

·       Domestic Abuse

·       Bullying

·       Overwork

·       Cancer or other health concerns

We have to remember it is ok to talk and it is ok to be not ok.   The more that we make that clear by telling our own stories the better.  At the conference there was one person who said that every time someone is honest about their mental health story, they are sending out a lifeboat to the millions of people who are suffering in silence.

We must embrace neurodiversity and consider that right through our recruitment policies and in our teams – In many of our job role requirements we put ‘good communication skills’ but that is not something people with Autism have and yet they are often the most brilliant people for specific jobs.

How can we increase our neuro diversity?

Heathrow showed how they have saved ￡2million and reduced stress related incidents in the workplace by 50% with their focus on Well Being for the 76,500 people who work there. Their people strategy has many elements and a clear message: 

“Your Body Matters”

“Your Mind Matters”

“Your Health Matters”

Giff Gaff talked about not ‘being your best self’ but just ‘being yourself’ how we need to have the courage and support to be authentic.

At Giff Gaff they have crowd sourced the ideas for well-being from their employees – one example being the ‘Choose your own public holiday’ so that people can take other religious or non-religious breaks that suit them better.

Senior people from Leon, Doctor Martin, Google and Virgin talked about how they had made mental well-being as a strategic priority with job titles such as 

Rebel Souls

Culture Vultures

Chief Heart Officer

Director of Happiness

Whilst these job titles may make some in Infrastructure cringe there is a whole new world of people to whom this is the new normal and expected.

Keep them safe - psychological safety, purpose and an open, human culture.

Once we have all the physical aspects of one's work-life sorted out then we can focus on the emotional one and evidently, it is the latter that most contributes to employee satisfaction. 

A team who works well together, trusts each other, has mutual respect and feels supported in doing what they perceive are greatly important things, will readily go without the office unicycle program and conversely, having pizza and beer at mandatory hackathons on Thursdays won't automatically make employees feel they are part of a safe work environment in and of itself.

To innovate, people have to feel safe.

To create towards a purpose, they feel emotionally invested in, people need to feel empowered and safe.

To speak up and add value whether by voicing their opinion or expressing alternative points of view they need to care and yes, you guessed it, they need to feel safe.

No matter how we spin it and no matter what the end goal is, the only way to give emotional well-being to one's employees is to start at the most basic of human needs, nearly at the bottom of Maslow's pyramid - the need for safety. It's only afterward that we can work on making them belong, feel valued and be their authentic self.

Please Watch

https://wellbeing.bitc.org.uk/all-resources/research-articles/mental-health-work-report-–-2019

Please Listen

https://eatsleepworkrepeat.com

Please think 

·      Let’s join up our thinking and our activities to be Whole Person organisations

·      Fresh Air Fridays – let’s make sure we get outside and walk more

·      Let’s join the dots – and use all our senses – smell, touch, taste, vision

·      Have a speak up culture

·      Tune into your language – about Mental Health she/he has v is 

·      Tell your own story as honestly as you can

·      Reduce Complexity

·      Pay attention to the quality and amount of your sleep

·      Do not work over holidays and weekends and late into the evening

·      Consider how you can get your cortisol levels down 

·      How do you switch off?

·      Trial Head Space

·      Go for a walk

·      Celebrate Successes

·      Make time to ask, “how are you’ and not just ‘have you done your tasks and then make it clear that you have time to fully listen to the answer

·      Consider – ‘what do you do that makes you feel better’

·      How do you make sure you and your colleagues are more resilient?

·      Do you have principles and not policy – context and not control

·      Consider not only having communities of practice but communities of interest and communities of fun

·      How do we celebrate failures and make it ok for people to learn from other people’s mistakes – failure of the week?

and breathe