Mental Health: Don't simply follow the crowd!

So I will start this article with the disclaimer that these are the views of myself and in no way an indication of the views or position of the company with which I am currently engaged. I am also keen to stress that outside of an active interest in this area and an avid reader I am in no way suggesting that I am an expert when it comes to mental health and wellbeing.

So, let me begin with a startling statistic.

One in four people in the UK will experience poor mental health. Let that sink in for a minute. 1 in 4. Many families in the UK have 3.7 people. This means that in your family you are potentially going to have a partner, child or maybe even you that will suffer from poor mental health.

Move that emotive statement to the workplace and you’re even more likely to encounter someone. Consider that the average organisation in the UK employs just under ten people and you begin to realise the relevance of all employers taking steps to do more to look at how your work and operations are impacting on your teams and what you can do to support them more effectively. Maybe you’re one of the people that say, “but this includes mental health due to outside influences” and id agree, it does. I would though like to draw your attention to another statistics that suggests that two in five employees (38%) have experienced poor mental health due to work, or where work has been a contributory factor, in the past year which is up from 36% in 2017 and 2018.

But Danny, I hear you say we have trained lots of our staff to be mental health first aiders (including some that are seen to be the office gossip) and have offered an EAP scheme (that very few people use) and send any employees that are off sick for more than 28 days to see an occupational health professional (pretty reactive don’t you think?) and my response to this is often – so what. If your policies are punitive, your culture sucks and your managers little dictators or worse following the orders of their bosses without question or concern for the impact on the teams they lead. A report recently stated that 62% of managers said they had put the interests of the organisation above staff wellbeing either sometimes, regularly or every day! This type of statistic undermines any initiative you have designed to support your team and don’t get me started on open door policies if this is the managers mentality. If this is true for you then I’d recommend saving your money and spending it in other ways. My view is to ask what message your delivering to your management team and how are you going to ensure its in line with what you think is happening. I would also say that businesses need to stop doing things for the sake of doing them, because others are doing them or to tick a box (one of my personal bug bears) and look at what they can do that adds value.

So, what can we do I can hear you say…? Well firstly I’d suggest stopping and thinking. Don’t take too long of course but don’t automatically react. Think about it.

One question you may want to ask yourself is WHY Unfortunately I have heard many people talk of the need to do something for health and wellbeing and delegate it to departments or people to get it done. “We must do something” or “can you produce a strategy and implement?” I hear people cry quite often. Hold on! Think about it for a second. Why must you do something? What is your underlying reason? if at this point, you’re thinking anything that isn’t because it’s the right thing then I am sorry to tell you that I believe you’ve missed the point. Focusing on supporting your workforce should be because it’s the right thing to do. Doing it because you have read an article, blog, story about how many companies are now doing this would lead me to urge you stop and think again. Let me put it this way, I believe that if you are doing this because others are doing it is will lead to failure (in my opinion) and is certainly not the reason to implement a health and wellbeing strategy. The same goes if you say “I am doing it because my board, manager has told me to” does not resonate as a calling to do the right thing.

The starting point for me should always be an assessment (that may be the health and safety person in me, but I have generally found it works). Implementing a wellbeing strategy should be a root and branch assessment, much like adopting a safety culture in my view you should look to take a holistic view that includes all locations, depts, and runs through the management systems, through documents, policies, procedures, support, training, everything. I would recommend looking to reduce the risks at source. If that means making changes including ripping up the rule books and starting again then so be it. Why stick with things simply because you’ve always done it a certain way (unless it works of course) does a 9 to 5 culture really work for everyone?

Things to think about:

o  What risks are there within your business?

o  Are your policies and procedures supportive of employees or potentially a cause of mental health struggles?

o  What statistics do you have already within the organisation? Have you undertaken any feedback surveys, reviewed absence statistics, looked at working hours, annual leave patterns for instance?

o  Look at what work people are undertaking and why?

o  How are they working?

o  Look at the targets of the business and how they may impact on the teams, are they aligned to the goals and values of an organisation or are they set to stop difficult questions being asked ? consider for instance a sales team that regularly creates pipelines that never bear fruit in order to be seen to be active or chasing the sale, moving leads on month on month with no real expectation of winning

o  Do you have a strict office policy surrounding the work location, dress code or hours? Without really understanding why these types of rules are in place

Only once you’ve undertaken an assessment should you start to look at the control measures to reduce the risk as far as reasonably practicable.

A common response from organisations is to put the responsibility for mental health and wellbeing strategies or programmes into one person specified role or department. This would typically be HR, H&S or occupational health. For me I would think it worth considering making this a key part of ALL department’s responsibilities, much like general health and safety is which is widely recognised as a key component of roles now. This I would hope would go some way to ensuring that people are thinking of the health and wellbeing of staff and colleagues.

If you’re considering engaging with external consultants or “experts” then know this; Mental health and wellbeing as an industry is growing at an exponential rate and many players are entering the market and offering solutions in order to gain a commercial advantage for them. The danger with this growth is that many entering the market place are attempting to sell solutions or products with limited evidence of the success. Worse, I have heard multiple stories of people and businesses portraying themselves as experts in this field when they are simply not.

My fear with this growth is that the people that need this the most will be the ones that suffer!

Many organisations capture a lot of data related to the workforce but rarely utilise it for other means. Take for instance the straight forward ones like absence and retention rates which will typically tell you quite a bit. Don’t only look at the headlines, consider the detail. What are the reasons for absences or exits; where are the higher rates, are they in a site, department or team? Other relevant statistics can include attendance reports related to time keeping (id normally ask about core hours and flexibility at this point and whether it exists, or your organisation adopts the traditional 9 to 5 that includes up to 2 hours commute each way). The report mentioned previously highlights an area that many wouldn’t necessarily automatically think about, which is the workload impacting on their ability to take leave as one of the main causes of work-related poor mental health. I would ask you to consider this within your organisation especially at this time of year when many organisations leave period runs from January to December. Are staff able to take leave or are they carrying over or losing entitlement? What’s stopping people from taking leave? Have you asked them?

Are you making it part of a big launch, maybe you want to coincide with something like the world mental health day? My first response is Great, but why? Why are you making this such a priority and focus of your campaign is it a PR stunt? Is it more important than delivering a programme that positively impacts your team? Of course, not I hear you say, well then if that’s the case why wait? Why not launch it at a time that the programme is ready and focussed on your teams and organisation rather than some external force? Linking into national programmes is good but can sometimes make you wonder about its prioritisation for the rest of the year. “Ok the days over now get back to work”

Maybe you’re considering or have implemented training? Have you considered the delivery of a generic message, your culture and how it plays a key part of what you do not to mention the individual teams you work with? A starting point for many is the Mental Health First Aider Qualification that’s widely recognised as an industry leader in this area for training. I recognise that the MHFA qualifications have made some significant inroads into the delivery of recognised structured training in this area but equally recognise that many organisations seem to adopt this as a total solution that “ticks a box”. Simply put this is an aspect of a solution that’s firmly part of a wider programme. Simply training people to be mental health first aiders is not enough. As far as training is concerned, I would recommend considering training as part of a wider strategy and focus on what you’re trying to achieve.

Think about:

• Who is delivering the training and how relatable are they to the audience? Whilst mental health is human centred the causes of poor mental health can be quite different even within similar industries and organisations. A one size fits all approach may not necessarily be the best solution
• Who is going to undertake the training? Do they have a genuine interest or are they collecting badges or certificates? People should want to help others. Are they approachable, can they keep confidence?
• Confidentiality, as above. How likely is this person to keep someone’s trust? Many organisations operate an open door policy but hand on heart as a leader how many of your staff have used this with you?

As for what type of support you may want to provide. Well there are a growing number of organisations that will utilise the support of an EAP provider and/or Occupational Health and will look to run a number of initiatives that can include “wellbeing days” to support the workforce by measuring blood pressure, nutritional advice, stop smoking, reduce drinking etc Do you measure the impact of these? Do they have long term benefits associated with them? These can at times tend to be undertaken in isolation as part of wellbeing calendars and not necessarily linked to the needs of the individual or wider organisation. Alternatively, some organisations will operate reactively and implement steps to support an individual once they are absent from work. Typically waiting for someone to be off work before they are referred for support or advice this can include waiting in excess of 28 days before they speak with a professional. Could you consider turning this around and operating a proactive service for people to engage with skilled professionals?

Top Tips

1.      Stop and think. Don’t react but look at the holistic picture. Look at your organisation and don’t simply copy what others are doing.

2.      Consider the root and branch of your organisation. How does what you do and how you do it impact on your employees and your customers? Do your policies dictate where and when people work? Do you focus on outputs or being present in a fixed location as a measure of someone’s performance?

3.      Look at the data you captured in your business already, absences, turnover, time keeping, leave entitlements, survey results etc

4.      Engage with your organisation, teams and peers. If utilising experts then seek testimonials from actual customers (and speak with them), make it relevant to your industry, organisation and location. A one size fits all approach is probably not going t be as successful as a tailored one.

5.      Develop a plan and implement it, plan it, do it, check it and then Act.

6.      Learn, Review and Implement.

Those that follow my posts (and thank you for reading this far) will know I am a big fan of initiatives like the four day working week and adopting strategies for work life balance, but and it is a big but, please do not see this as me simply advising you to adopt a four day week and let everyone work remotely. This is not my point. You are not Microsoft! What works for one may not work for you. My point is stop and think and develop an assessment.

Engage with your workforce, peers and see what is working in your organisation, elsewhere and consider being radical. Radical with your strategy, your people and your organisation will thank you for it.

You are an individual as are your people.