Mental Health Awareness Day 2018

Mental health issues have a significant impact on employee well-being and are often a major cause of long-term absence from work.

A recent survey carried out by Mind found that out of 48 per cent of UK employees who have experienced mental health problems in their current job, only half of them felt comfortable enough to disclose this with their organisation or Line Manager.

All organisations have an important role to play in improving mental health at work and creating an environment where staff feel comfortable disclosing any issues including anxiety or depression is an important first step.

It is also good practice for Line Managers to be trained to spot those early signs of stress and depression and be empowered to amend their employee workloads to alleviate the situation. There are certain signs which could alert a manager to the fact that an employee may be struggling with their mental health, for example, changes in usual behaviour or an increase in sickness absence.

Because employees may be reluctant to start a conversation with their Line Manager about a mental health problem, it is important that Line Managers take the lead and arrange a meeting as soon as possible to encourage the employee to open up, rather than sit back and hope the problem goes away.

We believe that organisations that take a positive approach to mental health support will be better off in the long run and firmly believe that those that include it as an integral part of their workplace culture will be rewarded with improved morale, increased productivity and a reduction in sickness absence.

Aspire Comment

Mind’s survey clearly demonstrates that companies need to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ when it comes to improving mental health in the workplace. If you need any help or support when dealing with long-term absence, return to work meetings, wellbeing in the workplace or would like to talk to us about how we can support you or your Line Managers in how to manage these meetings, please contact our dedicated, experienced team of HR advisors on 0121 445 6178.

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