Despite the growing awareness of mental ill-health, 50% of managers believe no-one in their workplace is affected. It is estimated that 1 in 6 working age people will be struggling at any one point in time, so although it’s not always obvious, it is likely that mental ill-health will be present in your workplace at some point.
Mental health issues have a significant cost to organisations in terms of performance and profitability. For example, the Centre for Mental Health estimates that the total cost to employers of mental health problems among their staff is nearly £26 billion each year. Employee wellbeing is therefore critical to any organisation and for companies to thrive, their employees need to feel well mentally and emotionally. As a manager, promoting workplace wellbeing is a way of future-proofing your business – it helps to prevent future absence and boost productivity down the track. Having a mentally healthy workplace is a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining quality staff, promoting productivity and reducing absence. FD Consultants offers a bespoke consultancy and training service to companies who wish to invest in their employees’ psychological health. Our aims are to promote good mental health among staff and equip managers with strategies to handle difficult workplace issues which affect psychological wellbeing. Training sessions can be tailored to the needs of managers or other employees. Examples of topics from which organisations benefit, include:
Get in touch with us today to talk through your organisation needs and lets work together to support your staff’s mental health and wellbeing.
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Employers must get to grips with mental health in the workplace with politicians focusing on the issue and recent case law showing that employers are failing to understand their responsibilities. The term “mental health” itself is not a legal definition but refers to a continuum that includes emotional well-being, mental health conditions and mental illnesses. Mental health, like physical health, can fluctuate but everyone’s experience of mental health is different and unique to them. It would now seem that as a society we recognise the need to take more proactive steps to invest in addressing and improving mental health and the benefits of doing so. In some cases, employers will be legally obliged to take certain steps if the legal definition of disability is met, as considered further below. It is worth pausing to reflect on some of the headline statistics on mental health in the workplace.
Even this small selection of statistics is pretty harrowing and a reflection of the work to be done as a society and in business circles in promoting mental well-being. This issue is now gaining more political attention. Practical steps What are the practical steps that employers can take to promote mental well-being? A few examples are set out below:
If your organisation needs help with implementing any of the above initiatives please do get in touch today, we are here to help Research, conducted by Fox & Partners, the employment law specialists. found that the rise in disability discrimination claims has been eight times faster than the growth in all claims. The firm analysed figures from the Ministry of Justice which also showed that the total number of claims at Employment Tribunals increased by 4.3% to 178,990 in the last year, up from 171,630 in 2017. Mind, the mental health charity, described the tribunal figures as “shocking”. Ivor Adair, Partner at Fox & Partners, comments: “Discrimination claims related to stress and mental illness are fast becoming a new area of friction between employees and employers.” “Employers need to ensure they handle the pressures facing their employees in the correct way. Improved training amongst managers in dealing with mental illness can help them reduce the likelihood of claims by increasing awareness and helping them create ways to ameliorate them.” There are many kinds of humanitarian agencies and many kinds of humanitarian work. Each particular context creates a particular set of sources of stress, and the risks to individual staff and the resources they use can vary, as well. Yet a broad range of research suggests that staff in all of these situations face common challenges. Studies have documented a PTSD prevalence of 25% among search and rescue personnel responding to events such as earthquakes, airplane crashes, and bomb explosions, and a prevalence of 21% among firefighters (compared to 4% for the general population). Approximately 30% of international staff of five humanitarian aid and development agencies surveyed after their return from their assignments reported significant symptoms of PTSD. Among war journalists, a lifetime prevalence of over 28% for PTSD, 21% for major depression, and 14% for substance abuse has been reported, rates far higher than those for non-war journalists. There are now many charitable and industry led campaigns designed to raise awareness of mental health issues. Employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to any employee experiencing a disability under the Equality Act 2010, which can include a mental health problem if it has a substantial, adverse, and long-term effect on normal day-to-day activities. However, in order to benefit from the protection of the Act, employees have to disclose their disabilities. If you’re business is looking for support in this area please get in touch with us today. Stress symptoms may be affecting your health, even though you might not realise it. You may think illness is to blame for that irritating headache, your frequent insomnia or your decreased productivity at work. But stress may actually be the cause. Common effects of stress Indeed, stress symptoms can affect your body, your thoughts and feelings, and your behaviour. Being able to recognise common stress symptoms can help you manage them. Stress that's left unchecked can contribute to many health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
Act to manage stress
If you have stress symptoms, taking steps to manage your stress can have many health benefits. Explore stress management strategies, such as:
When to seek help If you're not sure if stress is the cause or if you've taken steps to control your stress but your symptoms continue, see your doctor, or consider seeing a professional therapist, who can help you identify sources of your stress and learn new coping tools. Contact us today for more details on our training programmes to help identify signs of stress and how to manage them. There are six main areas that can lead to work-related stress if they are not managed properly. These are:
For example, employees may say that they:
What are some of the stress factors when working in the Humanitarian Sector? (Dunkley, 2018)
Stress affects people differently, what stresses one person may not affect another. Factors like skills and experience, age or disability may all affect whether an employee can cope. By talking to your employees and understanding how to identify the signs of stress, you can prevent and reduce stress in your workplace. Here at FD Consultants we believe in preventative management and run various training programmes to support staff to manage stress, and more importantly enable managers to spot the signs of employee stress and how to support their colleagues. Contact us today for more details on our training programmes |
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