Wellbeing and Mental Health in the Workplace
The skills learnt from the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) course allow me to implement proactive initiatives that prevent physical and mental issues before they occur, while supporting and driving growth and performance, helping employees to feel happy and engaged.
Supporting mental health in your workplace
As the impact of workplace stress becomes more present in our world, many businesses are seeking the help of HR consultancy to positively impact mental health in the workplace. Outsourcing your wellbeing services can help to address many issues from employee happiness and wellbeing to conflict resolutions and counselling services, to offering mental health first aid in the workplace.
Working with a HR consultancy is not only a preventative method, but ensures you have a supportive and productive environment for all of your employees. Not only does this include long-term issues but having received a qualification in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), emergency mental health situations in the workplace can also be addressed and employees supported.
The importance of positive wellbeing initiatives
We know that stress, depression or anxiety accounted for 44% of work-related ill health and 54% of working days lost in the UK in 2018/19 (HSE, 2019). In addition to sickness absence, poor mental health at work can lead to increased staff turnover, reduced engagement, reduced productivity and high presenteeism, which shows the importance of mental health in business.
When you consider that this survey was undertaken pre-COVID-19, and research from Mind UK is already pointing to the likely significant and prolonged psychological impact of the pandemic, the business case is clear when considering mental health in the workplace statistics. Organisations of all sizes need a cohesive, holistic strategy and framework to support psychological wellbeing; an approach that is proportionate to the size and maturity of the organisation, but nevertheless is flexible to suit the needs of as many individuals as possible.
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My approach to HR & mental health in the workplace
I believe workplace and individual wellbeing is underpinned by the concept of flourishing – what makes people perform at their best, feel good and stay psychologically and physically healthy. Putting in place an integrated approach that proactively prevents physical and mental issues before they occur, while supporting and driving growth and performance, helps employees to feel happy and engaged.
Seligman’s PERMA Model suggests five separate pillars to increase and sustain wellbeing: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievement. This is a simple yet powerful framework which can help us to create a targeted and integrated approach to wellbeing and can be used alongside workplace mental health training.
Seligman’s Perma Model of wellbeing
Positive emotions
Supporting and sustaining physical and psychological wellbeing and resilience.
This is not about being happy all the time – it is about knowing how to support physical and mental health in ourselves and in others, how to notice when wellbeing dips and what to do about it. Knowing how and when to rest and recharge rebuilds and sustains our resilience. Where these preventative measures are not enough, there should also be a reactive safety net in place.
Engagement
Creating an environment where people can play to their strengths, feel energised, and experience “flow”- that state where you momentarily lose track of time.
Ensuring you truly understand what you (and your team) are passionate about, focusing on strengths and only addressing overdone strengths (so-called ‘weaknesses’) when they hinder progress or wellbeing. This also acknowledges that not all stress is bad stress.
Relationships
Knowing how to get the best out yourself and others by building strong, authentic relationships. This is underpinned by trust and an awareness of each other’s perspective.
Creating an environment where collaboration, support and healthy challenge can co-exist and where conflict can be resolved constructively and positively.
Meaning
Establishing a clear sense of purpose – the anchor to come back to when things go wrong.
Finding a connecting thread between the individual, team and organisation purpose. This helps individuals to recognise the greater purpose of their role, the impact of their contribution and drive a sense of belonging.
Achievement
Making sure we fully understand goals, objectives and that we make the most of our successes.
We are wired to focus on threats, challenges and mishaps, which means we sometimes overlook or don’t pay enough attention to celebrating success. It is important to recognise the effort and impact the achievement has made to the individual, team and the wider organisation.
HR services & managing mental health in the workplace
We can be on hand in a time of crisis, using skills learnt from the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) course. Mental health workplace training enables us to plan long term initiatives to promote good mental health among employees, by creating unique strategies for your business. In turn, this helps to develop successful leaders through mentoring, or influencing senior leaders to promote positive growth and change.
Why your business needs wellbeing coaching
The stress and pressures of life, both at home and at work, impact us all on a daily basis. This stress directly impacts our wellbeing.
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What is wellbeing coaching?
Wellbeing coaching supports all people across the full spectrum of mental health to proactively maximise wellbeing for themselves and others.
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What areas of mental health and wellbeing do you cover?
Having worked in the industry for over 20 years, I have experience in so many different areas.
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How the accreditation bolsters each service
Being able to respond, reassure and support people in a time of crisis, is essential for a HR specialist.
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The stress and pressures of life, both at home and at work, impact us all on a daily basis. This stress directly impacts our wellbeing.
The key challenge to overcome is preventing issues before they occur, where possible.
A cohort of Mental Health First Aiders (MHFA) is a valuable resource to have in any company, though these can often be under-utilised, where employees are either unaware or uncomfortable to share sensitive issues with an internal colleague.
Many companies offer external Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP), but in my experience it can be challenging to build and maintain awareness of EAP, and even more challenging to encourage employees to use these services. Indeed, employees may not even be aware that they need support for mental ill health, and therefore do not view these therapy- or counselling-based services as relevant to them.
In both cases, the solution is reactive once an issue has occurred. Intended to ‘fix’ a problem, rather than prevent an issue from occuring in the first place, due to proactive intervention.
This is where wellbeing coaching fills a much-needed gap.
Wellbeing coaching supports all people across the full spectrum of mental health to proactively maximise wellbeing for themselves and others.
Based on the PERMA model of wellbeing, this confidential coaching offers 121 support for people to focus on aspects of their own psychological health, engagement, motivation, strengths and resilience, to flourish and achieve their fullest potential.
Having worked in the industry for over 20 years, I have experience in so many different areas.
We have in-depth expertise in grief and loss, redundancy coaching, as well as developing strong leaders and mentoring.
As a bespoke service, we can create a unique approach for your business and employees, to meet your exact needs and requirements. We can also signpost employees to other services and offer advice if needed.
Being able to respond, reassure and support people in a time of crisis, is essential for a HR specialist and can have an important and meaningful impact on an individual and their workplace.
Through wellbeing coaching and implementing the five pillars of the Perma Model of Wellbeing, we always hope to avoid emergency mental illness and crisis situations, but you also need to be prepared in case they do.
Having Mental Health First Aiders (MHFA) on hand to help, give advice and support people, is the best way to offer supportive and meaningful and mental health in the workplace.
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