We're committed to increasing positive mental health
Mental Health in the Workplace
Setting up a Mental Health and Well-Being provision in the Workplace
Did you know thar there is a duty of care on the employer to ensure that there are appropriate provisions are in place to support the mental health and well-being of your employees.
Section 2 (e) Health and Safety at Work At 1974 defines the general duties of care of an employer to his staff and paragraph around well-being at work.
Recent research has highlighted the problems connected with mental health well-being in the workplace with up to 1 in 3 workers affected in some way - the Mental Health Foundation in the UK estimate the cost of this to be a massive £225 billion!
Here you will find resources to help you set up and run a mental health and well-being programme in your workplace.
Some useful links
https://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=6062 - https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters - ttps://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/tips-for-everyday-living/workplace-mental-health/work-and-mental-health - https://www.mentalhealthatwork.org.uk/ - https://mhfaengland.org/ - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/thriving-at-work-a-review-of-mental-health-and-employers
Top 10 tips for setting up a Mental Health and Well-being Provision in your workplace.
​
1. Start of by reading the Thriving at work The Stevenson / Farmer review of mental health and employers, this has some great recommendations in and is a great place to start.
2. Think about about you want to achieve and start by putting a strategy together, get buy in from the top and ensure the senior management team sign this off.
3. Think about what provisions and type of programme you can apply to your workplace according to the resources you have, the people you have working for you and the type of industry. Every provision will need to be bespoke according to the needs of your employees. You can put an action plan together to deliver your strategy and give specific responsibilities and team lines to ensure that they get put into place.
4. Get other people on board to help out - you could sign up one person in each team to be a mental health first aider and mental health champion. Mental Health England run a range of courses - https://mhfaengland.org/
5. Get involved in campaigns that are wider than your organisation and get the support of others - join the workplace commitment - https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/launch-of-mental-health-at-work-commitment/
6. Organise lunch time exercise or after work clubs - from setting up a walking club, to subsidised lunch time yoga sessions to approaching your local gym to request discounted gym membership.
7. Bring local businesses in - If you have a room that you can offer free hire you may find that local businesses will run subsidised sessions for your employees and they can pay direct and book with the business directly, or if you have a budget you can offer these for free. Classes such as yoga or massage sessions which help staff to relax and de-stress are often very beneficial.
8. Consider running well being days and / or mental health awareness sessions - download our template PowerPoint which can be customised for your business and used to create an awareness session. Well-being health days can be run in conjunction with other businesses and organisations such as the NHS who may come in and run smoking cessation sessions, local gyms may run exercise taster sessions and talk to you about the benefits of exercise, you can offer healthy eating / cookery classes and health food (the NHS clinical commissioning team may even offer some of these service in certain areas or local charities may get involved).
9. Join an accredited scheme for your area. Such as the London Healthy Workplace Awards (The London Healthy Workplace Award (LHWA) is a free accreditation scheme led by the Mayor of London's Office and supported by Public Health England. Launched in 2012, the award was updated in 2019 to reflect latest evidence. A new version was launched in March 2021, to reflect changes in the workplace due to COVID-19). They can offer advice and support for setting up provisions in your organisation. https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/health/london-healthy-workplace-award/about-london-healthy-workplace-award
10.Approach HR services that can be brought in, such as counselling services or other well-being provisions for staff, if you are a smaller organisation it maybe worth enquiring with other organisations if you can by in such services together, in order to save costs.