Aiding mental wellbeing in the workplace

I’ve spoken about areas of professional life that we all know are important, but we find difficult to focus on – prioritising our mental wellbeing at work probably falls into this category for many of us. The theme of this year’s recent World Mental Health Day was workplace mental health, something that needs to be given attention all year round.

Mental health charities do all they can to support people through crises and to help prevent them getting there at all.

While many of us face challenges that require extra support, many of us don’t, but this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give our mental wellbeing any attention. A bit like a routine checkup or a regular car service, there are many things we can do to support our minds.

Answering the following questions is a good starting point to help you assess whether your work environment is helping you to have a healthy mind: Do you have good boundaries in place? Is the flow of communication between you and your colleagues, direct reports and boss healthy? Do you feel like you are a valued team member? Does your work set-up enable you to do your best?

For some of us, the type of work we do and the impact we have is a motivator for getting up in the morning and plays a key role in our lives, in which case engagement and having an element of challenge becomes important too.

Aside from this, looking at what we’ve broadly come to know as self-care is also valuable. It’s worth understanding what your employer offers in this area. For example, you may have access to discounted fitness, leisure, high street and food vouchers. Or maybe you can volunteer for your favourite local charity during work time. It’s easy to feel too busy to explore these opportunities, but they’ve been put in place for good reason, so do make the most of them.

Having worked with numerous businesses over the years, the happiest employees are those that can positively answer the questions above or at least feel improvement is possible, coupled with knowing their employers care about them beyond their day jobs.

If you’re an employer, you’ll know there are business benefits to supporting your employees – it’s so much more than ticking a box or being seen to do the ‘right thing’. Most obviously, a happy workforce results in less absences and better productivity so it’s also a wise business decision to invest in your employees’ mental wellbeing.

As well as the above, simple checks can make a big difference, like making sure mental health policies make sense, are relevant and give employees relevant information with little or no jargon.

While this may sound like adding more work to the ever-growing lists of tasks, it is too important to ignore. Start small, start slow, but keep moving forward. Working with specialists in this area can help you ascertain what’s best for your employees and then outsourcing the implementation and the administration could be the best way to ensure it gets done and done properly.

Taking care of our mental wellbeing at work is something we all need to think about. It’s not just up to individuals; it’s a team effort. By creating a supportive environment, keeping communication open, and making sure everyone feels valued, we can really make a difference.

This article was first published in the Business Section of the Yorkshire Post on 31st October 2024.