World mental health month: Recognising the important role of workplaces in promoting mental health and wellbeing

2024’s mental health month theme is all about workplace mental health and the theme couldn’t have come at a better moment.

COVID has changed the way we work forever. We have had a chance to reflect on our work lives and identify the things we liked and those we didn’t, and for many, a total reset of priorities and purpose ensued.

We are demanding a stronger focus on having a meaningful and enjoyable experience in the workplace and leading companies are listening. They see that a focus on staff wellbeing benefits both employees and the business itself in many ways.

The benefits of a caring work culture.

First things first: it benefits the mental Health of Employees.

When wellbeing is emphasised in the workplace, the overall mental health of employees is supported. Individuals are supported to develop meaningful social connections at work, experience meaning and purpose in their role, and receive opportunities to grow and develop – all important factors that contribute to how we feel on a day-to-day basis.

Lacking wellbeing – or in other words languishing – not just a risk factor for developing mental illness. If we experience aspects of wellbeing such as purpose, optimism, positive relationships or a sense of autonomy, while we have symptoms of illness, we increase our ability to recover from mental illness.

Increased work performance and productivity, and the company’s bottom line. 

When employees are mentally healthy, they are able to thrive in and out of the workplace. We perform at our best and are most productive when we have high psychological wellbeing and job satisfaction.

Supporting employee wellbeing has numerous benefits to the company itself. Making the workplace a positive place to be reduces staff turnover, and therefore recruitment and training costs, leads to less sick days, increases productivity and quality of work. All of these factors increase revenue and decrease costs.

More likely to retain great employees.

A positive workplace culture centered on an investment in staff wellbeing, is more likely to attract and retain star employees. When looking for a new role, jobseekers now look at more than the salary – they want to know that they will be a part of a workplace that will support them as a person.

What factors contribute to work wellbeing?

Workplace mental health is a pretty complex topic and the answer depends a lot on the specific organisation, its staff and the circumstances it operates within. That said, there are a couple of key factors that consistently pop up when it comes to driving or inhibiting wellbeing, including

• Job Design: Demands of the role, resources provided, level of work engagement, level of control in the work environment.

• Team Factors: Support from co-workers and managers, quality of work relationships, effective leadership and opportunities for staff training.

• Organisational Factors: Changes to the organisation, support from the business, rewards and recognition for quality work, culture of justice, safety and support.

• Individual Factors: Personality, genetics, mental health history, lifestyle factors and coping style.

As we said: it’s complex, there is no way around that, but luckily we know quite a bit about what to do when it comes to workplace wellbeing.

What can workplaces do?

If you are looking for a simple framework to organise your workplace mental health and wellbeing efforts around, look no further than the protect, respond, promote framework. This simple framework gets organisations to think of:

• Protecting against psychosocial risks and hazards.

• Responding to (potential impact of) staff who are dealing with symptoms of mental illness.

• Promoting the factors that build staff and team wellbeing.

Each of these three pillars benefits from distinct but complementary approaches. What works to mitigate against risks is not necessarily sufficient to build wellbeing, and vice versa. Think about the example of an airplane: building the safest airplane to take people from a to b does not equate to one that is the most enjoyable to fly.

So how do you know what to implement to safeguard against hazards, what to put in place to respond to mental illness and what to embed in your culture to promote staff wellbeing and help people who languish? Well, a large research group have just published a free review that outlines the evidence for different activities to consider for each of the three categories. It is essential reading for anyone working in workplace mental health in 2024, which you can download here.

How we can help?

The team at Be Well Co have various offerings in place that helps teams work through the Protect, Promote, Respond framework via engaging workshops. These include a 90 minute workshop, a 1-day and a 2-day workshop.

Alternatively, our mental health and workplace wellbeing programs are geared towards helping individuals and the organisations they work in tackle key areas related to our wellbeing, and help people who languish or struggle with distress develop skills to manage they way the feel, think, behave and interact with others.

Find out more about the topics that are covered in the PDF here or you can email us at hello@bewellco.io for more information.