Mental Health in the workplace #mhaw17
Abigail Barclay
Managing Director, Inspired Search: Leading Inspired's Executive Search division, partnering with #publishing businesses connecting them with leadership talent for #SLT #C-Suite #Director #Executive and #NED appointments
As part of mental health awareness week, Team London Bridge hosted a breakfast meeting to cover the topic of mental health in the workplace. There has never been so much reported mental health but nor has there been so much coverage and awareness around it, with high profile individuals including Royals talking about their personal experience of it. There is a need and an opportunity to act…. With 2 in 3 people likely to experience mental health, we have to make our work places work for everyone. We need our employees to not only survive the day but also to thrive in the workplace.
Stress and pressure is something nearly all of us go through and it’s almost impossible to avoid. Workloads are high and success is necessary. We need, however, for stress to be a town that we sometimes pass through rather than one which we inhabit.
What can we do to enable our employees to pass through that town and not get stuck there? Here’s seven pointers to consider for your working environment
- Pay them enough money! They say money doesn’t buy people happiness however mental health is most common among the low income population and least common among the top 1%
- Create a supportive environment through traumatic moments in their lives, facilitating the opportunity for post-traumatic growth as opposed to PTSD.
- Encourage the attitude of taking small decisions on ourselves to come out of autopilot and make changes to stressful conditions; know when to say no.
- If you’re demanding a lot from your staff, create an environment which has high control. Letting the volume you’re demanding out of your staff get out of control is likely to impact on mental health.
- Monitor relationships between staff and their line managers – this is a key factor to mental health
- Get your staff out & about! Exercise and being physically active are hugely important to mental health
- Reduce inequality – keeping a fair game between employees will help mental health levels
Your staff are humans after all and whether going through mental health issues or not, are likely to be your biggest asset. Let’s do what we can to create an environment that isn’t exacerbating mental health and make work something that works for them.
Writer, Editor & Proofreader | Content Planning & Governance | Editorial Strategy | Writing Coach & Mentor | Events Curator | Into the Spooky Stuff
7 年Great advice, Abigail! Thanks for sharing. I suffer with mental health issues, and have had first-hand experience of both truly supportive and truly horrific work environments. I'd add one more tip: listen to your staff when they confide a mental health issue, don't put them on the "too hard" pile. It took them a lot of courage to confide, and it shouldn't change your perception of what they are capable of. Listening and adapting really does make a difference to what we can deliver.