World Mental Health Day

Today is World Mental Health Day and as a Mental Health First Aider, I wanted to share an insight into a recent webinar I joined led by Thrive: Mental Wellbeing on “What Does Making Mental Health a Priority Mean for Your Organisation?” hosted by Dr Andres Fonseca, Consultant Psychiatrist and Co-Founder of Thrive: Mental Wellbeing and Jonty Rose, Business Psychologist at Thrive: Mental Wellbeing.

There was an honest discussion about why some companies still don’t see it as a priority and a lot of words that came up were:

It’s very clear that businesses recognise that now more than ever mental health has to be something that they are not only aware of, but can also offer support towards. Yet, it’s still not happening. Employers are still so afraid to talk about mental health as they are scared of doing or saying the wrong thing. However, one thing the experts highlighted throughout the talk was that it’s very hard to do the wrong thing and in fact doing nothing would be the wrong thing.

We also talked a lot about comparing mental health to physical health. If an employee was to fall over and hurt their leg at work, we would naturally show empathy, know to call an ambulance or get them to hospital and ensure they are passed on to the right professional to help them. So why is it any different with mental health when someone openly says they are feeling anxious or depressed? People just aren’t prepared enough with how to react and what the next steps would be. Often this naturally falls on line managers and HR professionals, who in most cases aren’t equipped or prepared to handle situations like this.

The experts highlighted that with everything that’s happening right now with the cost of living, it’s very likely that the need for support in mental health will increase. So now is the time to think about what your employees need the most and how you can maximise your resources and where to invest.

Here are just a few ideas we discussed;

Create a cohesive communications strategy to promote conversations about it across all levels of the business - ideally starting with the top!
Offer 1:1 conversations for employees with external resources such as coaches, counsellors, therapists and more
Offer stress and resilience training in your business
Promote healthy coping strategies
Offer mental health training to managers who can then not only recognise signs and symptoms, but also have the confidence to have conversations with people
Offer resources such as gym memberships or cycle to work schemes – we all know that physical activity has been proven to improve mental health

Finally, probably the most important thing that was discussed for businesses to be aware of is that it’s not enough to just put these things in place. As a business you have to ensure people are utilising them. Leaders have to show they are doing things to support their own mental health such as taking lunch breaks, leaving work on time, exercising and not emailing into the early hours of the morning. Often if you’re running a fast-paced business, employees feel pressure to not take time to look after themselves and if they aren’t seeing their leaders do this, they will never feel confident to do the same.

The Mental Health Foundation also offer some great tips to share with your employees: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/publications/our-best-mental-health-tips