Business in the Community (BITC) research last year found that 61% of employees were found to have experienced mental health issues due to work, or where work was a relating factor.
The British Safety Council have put together a comprehensive Resilience Toolkit aimed at growing knowledge and skills and to support Mental Health Awareness Week they are offering organisations the opportunity of trialling the resources for free.
Poor mental health affects most people either directly or indirectly. Employers have a key role in supporting their staff through difficult times.
A key aspect of support is creating an environment where people feel comfortable enough to be open about how they're feeling. The charity Mind have some useful guidance called the Wellness Action Plan (WAP) that supports managers and their staff to integrate conversations about health & wellbeing into their 1:1s. There's a link to that and other mental health resources on the Wellbeing@Work pages.
Last week (3 - 19 May) was Mental Health Awareness Week. If you missed it and want to use national resources to support an internal campaign there are still posters and other downloadable information on their website. The next national focus is World Mental Health Day on Thursday October 10th.
5 Ways to Mental Wellbeing
Connect…
Connect with the people around you. With family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. At home, work, school or in your local community. Think of these as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing them. Building these connections will support and enrich you every day.
Good communication helps people feel connected to their colleagues and employer. This contributes to greater engagement and a sense of wellbeing. As an employer you can -
Build in times when people can eat, talk, relax and exercise together (as well as work!). As a business bonus, people stay longer in their jobs when they have friends at work
Talk with your staff, ask how they are, show interest in their lives and work - they will reward you with loyalty and commitment
Encourage teams to mix together - more creative work flows from people meeting, getting to know each other and working together
Plan how to keep people connected and involved, if you have flexible/home/shift/distance working
There is information on the other 4 of the 5 Ways to Wellbeing along with other free tools and resources on the Wellbeing@Work webpages
May is National Walking Month
Plenty of resources for the month on the Living Streets website
We all know that regular physical activity has a positive impact on our health and wellbeing, and can help us to feel refreshed, happier, more productive, and less stressed. Growing from the Daily Mile project in schools, the aim of The Daily Mile/Fit for Life is to make activity a daily habit by incorporate 15 minutes of self-paced physical activity (walking, jogging or running) into daily life. The scheme could be useful to integrate more physical activity into the working day for individuals or as inter-team challenges.
The British Heart Foundation offers suggestions for different places to walk that might give you ideas to share with your staff.
Guidance from the Chief Medical Officer is that to stay fit and healthy, adults (seeking medical advice as necessary) should be doing the following every week -
150 minutes of moderately intense activity in bouts of 10 minutes or more
+ 2 sessions of strength training
Ideally this is built into the infrastructure of the week so that it becomes a 'natural habit'. Cycling or walking to and from work can help and My Journey can help you think about how to encourage and resource this active travel.
Making Southampton a city of opportunity where everyone thrives
Civic Agreement Conference: 18 June
As a signatory of the pledge to develop a Civic Agreement, Solent University is organising a conference on 18 June on how it can find new ways to help Southampton establish itself as ‘a city of opportunity where everyone thrives’. Click here to register for this free event