O
ON TOPIC
CEO of mental health charity Mind;
in October that year, the Thriving at
Work report was launched.
“It really outlined the human
cost of not supporting employees
around their mental health, but also
the financial impact for businesses,
government and the economy as a
whole,” explains Faye McGuinness,
head of workplace wellbeing
programmes at Mind.
The review has, if not caused,
then coincided with, an apparent
sea change in attitudes. The 2018
Employee Wellbeing report by
the Reward & Employee Benefits
Association found that, if employers
follow through on their intentions,
nearly 80% of UK companies will
have a defined mental health strategy
by the early 2020s. Good intentions,
but what can they actually do and,
more importantly, will it work?
ental Health First Aid
(MHFA) England has
trained nearly 400,000
people in mental health
first aid. In November 2018, it sent
an open letter to prime minister
Theresa May challenging the
government to prioritise its
manifesto promise to give equal
weight to physical and mental first
aid. The letter was signed by some
of the country’s biggest employers
including Thames Water, WH Smith,
PwC and Ford.
“The thinking behind it is
straightforward,” says Jaan Madan,
workplace lead at MHFA England.
“Everyone knows a physical first-
aider, so why not train someone
to spot the signs of mental health
distress and teach a simple and
robust framework so they can have a
M
safe and guided conversation before,
importantly, signposting the most
appropriate professional help? It’s
a very simple set of skills.
“We also have a seven-day
instructor programme. In the
past couple of years, we’ve seen
businesses start to put their
individuals through this programme,
so they can then have that
resource internally.”
Mental health first aid is patently
valuable; having people in an
organisation who can spot signs
of mental stress could save lives.
However, like physical first aid, it’s
patching up. Other tools are needed:
you can’t build a house using only
a screwdriver.
“This is why we have a whole
organisational approach,” says
Madan. “The most successful
organisations take that approach
rather than just saying ‘we’re going
to give everyone some fruit and
reduced gym membership and run
some MHFA courses’. This is really
about a culture change.”
Employers have access to a raft
of wellbeing tools – fruit and gym
memberships included. There are
training organisations such as MHFA
England, free online resources,
including Mind’s Mental Health
at Work gateway, and employee
assistance programmes, often
outsourced to healthcare providers.
Some employers take a pic ‘n’
mix approach, selecting different
services from different sources.
Many of the options chosen –
helplines, paid therapy, resilience
training – while having value, address
symptoms rather than causes. This
is where things can get challenging
for employers.
Changing a working culture
takes time, but it’s not
impossible, with imagination
and determination
42 //
Future Talent
f you have an organisation
where wellbeing is a
problem, that may be as
much to do with the
culture of the organisation as
anything else,” says Dr Martin
Edwards, a reader in organisational
psychology and HR management
at King’s Business School. “For
example, we’ve seen a growth in
resilience training: employees
learning to be more resilient under
conditions of stress. That’s almost
blaming the employee for not being
able to deal with stress the culture
may be putting them under. It’s
putting a plaster on the problem.
“One would hope that employers
are also evaluating possible sources
of stress within the workplace, to
see whether there’s something in
their organisational culture, or how
jobs are designed, that could be
creating the negative wellbeing. It’s
a difficult thing for an organisation
to self-reflect on and diagnose
and change.”
Collective heads, however, are
regularly buried in the sand, muffling
some tricky questions. Do ingrained
attitudes to targets, absence and
time-keeping drive employees to
tears or drink? Does devotion to
team collaboration software create
‘digital presenteeism’? Is flexible
working blurring the lines between
office and home life? Changing a
working culture, a mindset, takes
time, but it’s not impossible, with
a dash of imagination and a heap
of determination.
For instance, a significant number
of companies are turning to a four-
day week on full pay and noticing
improved productivity (see article,
page 52). Old-fashioned performance
reviews are being replaced by a slew
of alternatives, from phone apps to
something called ‘conversation’. US
technology company Next Jump
has taken things even further: its
‘lifetime-employment’ policy means
that it never fires anyone based on
performance. Ever. And it isn’t an
act of charity.
“We used to adopt the Jack
Welch model of getting rid of
your bottom 10%,” Next Jump’s
I
“