O
ON TOPIC
Mental health at work:
?
is anyone getting it
RIGHT
Organisations
must ‘walk the
walk’ when it
comes to addressing workplace
mental health, and the key to
success is addressing culture.
he penny has finally dropped. Well, not so much dropped as
drifted down slower than a feather on the Moon, but that penny
– employers realising that mental health should be talked about
it in the same way as physical health – has at last touched down.
But it’s easy to talk a good game. If businesses are serious about
improving employees’ mental health, action is needed from all those involved
in developing people and culture. There’s little point in acknowledging the
black dog in the room if nobody takes practical steps to usher it out the door.
A recent study of 1,000 managers, C-suite executives and employees
by City & Guilds Group, illustrates the problem. It found that, while 94%
of businesses say they consider workplace mental safety as “important”,
only one in 10 is proactively trying to improve matters.
Worse still, a fifth (22%) of senior managers say they would only be
motivated to take action if a “high-profile press incident occurred” – akin
to saying you’d only help a drowning puppy if your children were watching.
However, the tide is turning.
In January 2017, the prime minister ordered an independent review into
workplace mental health, led by Lord Dennis Stevenson and Paul Farmer,
T
March – May 2019
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