How can your business look after your employees’ mental health?

Last week on Wednesday 9th June, members of the Swindon Mindful Employer Network met online to hear from experts in the field of business and mental health. 

The event was chaired by Yazmin Taylor of Swindon & Gloucestershire Mind (SG Mind) which aims to help empower organisations to support the mental health of their staff. 

“Your employees might have been going to work since the start of the pandemic, or they might be returning and with new worries over the coming months; people may be feeling a variety of emotions.” Says Yazmin. 

She explains how 1 in 6 workers experience common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety but that 70% of employers do not have a wellbeing budget in place. 

She says it’s important to be proactive about wellbeing in the workplace and ensure managers look out for their teams and the potential signs of illness. 

Yazmin introduced three speakers to the event, each with expertise from their own areas of work, who all gave advice to employers on how to recognise when people are struggling and what needs to be in place for employees to get the appropriate support. If you missed the live event, watch the video for invaluable insights into how to manage your employees’ wellbeing. 

Suzanne Baxter - Site and Field Trainer at Mind Swindon and Gloucestershire 

Suzanne explains how it is important for employers to create a back to work plan which considers the challenges of returning to work and employees’ wellbeing. 

She poses the following questions to employers: As management, have you had any discussions of a non-working context with employees? Have you had the opportunity to discuss with other managers how you have learnt to adapt in recent months? What are your individual concerns and pressure points? She says that by having these conversations and comparing experiences with employees, this adds to your skills in recognising how to support employees, while creating and opportunity for staff to voice their concerns. 

She recommends that people reflect on who their resilient role model might be and think of someone who seems to manage in the most challenging times. She says to think about the words you associate with this person. What words resonate with you when you think of resilience? 

She says you may also want to think about how resilient you are right now. What have you learnt during this time? She explains it’s important to acknowledge the skills you already have and focus on how you have positively learned to cope during COVID. 

People at work can develop their resilience through various methods including developing self-awareness and being able to acknowledge emotions as data rather than reacting to them. If there are times when your emotions overwhelm you, it is a good idea to begin to take notice of when you’re responding or reacting to them.  

She suggests that if you’re a person who  uses negative self-talk, write a list of positive qualities to help you create new habits and that having a compassionate self-view of yourself will help you become more compassionate with others. She explains that this can create positive working relationships as people become more understanding of the concerns and needs of others.

She explains how it is important to create opportunities to talk to staff about their issues and concerns and acknowledge what inner strength your staff have learnt which can help staff in their transition back to work.

What helps you stay healthy at work? Imagine your first day going into the workplace. What do you need to know? Where can you get a drink? What risk assessments have been done? Its important to discuss these in small groups and give people opportunities to discuss their personal concerns. 

Mark Poole – Mindful Employer Lead at Devon Partnership NHS Trust

Mark points out that although the conversation around mental health support has been growing rapidly, the challenges of the pandemic has really brought mental wellbeing to the fore of people’s minds

He explains that before COVID-19, 1 in 6 people experienced poor mental health. This cost the UK economy over £42 billion per year. He explains that while the individual costs of mental health do vary, this roughly translates as an annual cost of £1600 per employee in lost productivity.

After COVID, the ONS reported that the number of adults experiencing depression doubled. This, Mark says, is coupled with a rise in the number of people abusing alcohol and a significant rise in levels of physical inactivity.

This has led to a large rise in employees turning up to work despite being unwell. This is called presenteeism and manifests in two ways; turning up to work despite feeling unwell and where employees put in longer hours. He says this is unsustainable long term and will lead to burn out if left unmanaged. 

There are four key factors that drives presenteeism: lack of sleep, poor financial wellbeing, stress and poor mental health. These risk factors have been exascerbated over the last year as 40% of people have found it harder to sleep, while 39% of people’s financial security has decreased as a result of covid. 

So how can businesses start to address this? Mark says it is important that the problem is not ignored and that interventions are introduced. This might include training staff or providing staff with support with issues such as sourcing counsellors. 

While the use of interventions is a good start, without wider organisational change they wont work. It requires leadership from top, clear communication of strategy, structured evaluation, and monitoring of staff outcomes.

Chris Stewart – Managing Director at Minding Minds 

Chris spent ten years working in drug and alcohol treatment in homeless hostels and for the NHS and has himself recovered from alcoholism. He is now the Managing Director of Minding Minds, a company which offers online adult mental health first aid training. 

He explains that during the pandemic, people have been able to access alcohol and drugs much more easily than before as working from home meant that having a drink at lunch time, or earlier on in the evening was easier and held less consequence. 

Some chilling statistics included the fact that the death rate from alcoholism in October to December 2020 was 28% higher than the same period the previous year, and the highest recorded rate of any three-month period since 2001. 

It is the highest earners, those earning £40,000 or more annually, who are more likely to be frequent drinkers and “binge” on their heaviest drinking day when compared with the lowest earners. 

But how does alcohol impact businesses? Chris says that drug and alcohol abuse can affect co-worker’s morale and productivity and damage the public image of a company. Alcohol also increases anxiety once it has been processed by the body, and people end up repeat drinking to get the same short-term effect of reducing stress.  

He says that employers should be mindful of the signs of alcohol and drug abuse. Some of the signs include being frequently tardy or absent altogether, drinking quickly at social functions and being keen to get to the bar again, smelling like alcohol, or missing deadlines and having generally decreased productivity. 

He explains that people coming back to work who have developed an alcohol or drug problem will not able to have the couple of glasses of wine they had at lunch time or use the drugs they might have begun using over the last year. 

He says it’s important to take a concerned approach with staff you suspect have a problem, rather than being accusatory. A question you might ask is: It looks like you’re having a tough time, how can I help?

He also provided two sources of drug and alcohol policy guidance; one from the HSE on Managing Drug and alcohol misuse at work and one from ACAS on alcohol and drug policies. 

The event was delivered by Business West, in partnership with Swindon & Gloucestershire Mind and Swindon Borough Council. 

The next 2021 Mindful Employer event dates for your diary are 8th September and 17th November.