In this episode Peter Griffiths, CEO and Co-Founder of the Mind Take Away and host of the Mind Take Away Podcast, is speaking to Sheila Lord, Director of BMR - Health and Wellbeing, about the importance of listening to your employees and why we need to take a systemic approach when it comes to workplace mental health and wellbeing. We often hear leaders saying we do not need to implement a workplace wellbeing initiative because things are good in the company, and they don't have any issues with mental health. The challenge with this is that it's just the perspective from the leadership team, and quite often, it is not a reflection of the employees' day-to-day reality.
When it comes to mental health in the workplace, Sheila, by her own admission, has learned from her mistakes. She saw first-hand how businesses and organisations weren’t taking mental health seriously and what a detrimental impact that was having on industry as a whole.
In an effort to tackle this head-on, Sheila started BMR and today the company leads the way in mental health support programmes, all of which have a definitive return on investment.
Well known for her ability to ‘cut to the chase’, Sheila believes that workplace wellbeing isn’t just about fruit bowls and yoga and that you can’t simply magic away employee stress by ‘fixing’ people. The problem is often more complex but that’s what BMR is designed to help with.
Quite often we hear leaders saying why do we need to implement a workplace wellbeing initiative, because things are good right now in the company, we don’t have any issues with mental health. You see the issue with this is that's just the perspective from the leadership team and quite often it is not a reflection of the employees day to day reality.
If you listen, and you engage and you empower and you fix things; you are not only workplace stress you are improving performance.
You can lead, you can have empathy and be a strong leader, and create strong organisations. We need to bring the “human” back into the workplace.
Takeaways and Timestamps
02:40 Pressure is building on CEOs and business leaders to deal with workplace mental health and they don't know where to start.
05:20 Workspace mental health is a shared responsibility; as individuals we need to take ownership for our own mental health where we can and in the workplace we need to create a culture where we can have support when we need it.
8:00 Often one thing that gets missed is leaders after doing engagement surveys follow up with conversations with employees to get the full information about changes that are needed and what to do. / The only way to hone onto specifics is to ask your people and listen.
10:33 Why workplace wellbeing programs and initiatives have relatively low uptake and engagement from the employees.
16:53 What are the dangers of implementing a wellbeing strategy just to tick the box and not asking yourself why you need it?
21:18 The benefits of implementing a systemic workplace wellbeing approach even if your company is doing great right now.
23:32 Employees are a vital part of any organisation, they are driving your business forward every single day, and having good mental health is not an employee perk or reward.
26:31 What are the visible signs of mental health and how having a risk-based approach can help prevent problems occurring in the future, but also knowing what to do when someone needs help.
30:42 Everybody has a shared responsibility for mental health and workplace welling, so let's work together to create happy workplaces.
35:43 How fear is quite often the route cause of inaction when it comes to addressing mental health and wellness in the workplace.