World Mental Health Day
World Mental Health Day is observed on 10 October every year, with the overall objective of raising awareness of mental health issues around the world and mobilising efforts in support of mental health.
The Day provides an opportunity for all stakeholders working on mental health issues to talk about their work, and what more needs to be done to make mental health care a reality for people worldwide.
Safety People work with many Safety and Injury Management professionals who offer Mental Health programs for their teams. Still, sometimes, we don’t really stop to consider how we are looking after our own Mental Health and Well-being.
The team Culture and Company Values at Safety People reflect and support the assistance given to others during their career, professional and personal development. In recruitment, this is our driving force, purpose and motivation but sometimes at the expense of our own mental health. So, we thought, what small change could we make within our team, that could have downstream benefits to our candidates and clients?
2020 has disrupted our normal operating state. Thrown us many challenges and forced us to approach work differently, communicate differently, interact differently, curbed our social networks and pushed us in new directions both physically and mentally. This magnification of our COVID working environment needs a new approach to managing our mental health.
Our leadership team have introduced “Me Days.” Me days are exactly that, days for “Me” to recharge, regroup, focus on other things that make me happy, being present, homeschooling the children during the lockdown, helping my partner with dinner, re-discovering my passions, exercising and doing it all without feeling guilty, on work time. I don’t need a doctors certificate because I’m not sick, and it doesn’t count as annual leave, but I do get to spend it how I want. And that is exactly how we first care for our own mental health so that we are better prepared to face new work challenges and continue to help others.
Sometimes, it is all about Me.
I’ve struggled at different times in life to deal with uncertainty, disruption, challenges and hardship, emotionally mainly but I think looking back they had incrementally given me strength to keep putting one step ahead of the other and keep moving forward. This experience allowed me to react differently but with confidence. During lockdown especially, it has tested me again and I am grateful to be resilient enough to keep calm, lean on others, seek help and take a “Me Day” to help me mentally. It won’t be the same for everyone reading this comment, but this has been my experience and whilst I’d feel capable in dealing with my mental health, sometimes initiatives like this make a huge difference. Thank you Glenn Arnold and Michelle Macdonald for this initiative. It’s really appreciated and means a lot to the team.