Hi Dom,

This must be a real challenge for you!

It might be worth taking a step back to get some insight about the causes of the mental health issues – as you know the expensive programmes and initiatives often don’t solve the problem!  We need to understand what’s happening e.g. – is it unrealistic work demands, a manager that doesn’t show an interest in you, not enough time for family/exercise etc… A quick survey will give you so much data and then you can focus your efforts on giving your people what they really need.

If you haven’t already seen our webinar on this topic, you can watch it here. We’ve provided many examples of how progressive companies have approached this, but most of the examples can be applied in small businesses too. For example, encourage your managers to show they care by asking people how they want to be managed, by giving them some flexibility or simply encouraging leadership to connect with your people during a weekly zoom call to enhance their sense of belonging.

You might also consider providing your managers with this Toolkit: Asking the right questions- Health & Wellbeing, to help them get the conversation going with their people or adapt these questions for your survey.

Also, make use of external resources that you can point your people to so that they can manage their own health and wellbeing rather than creating your own – there are so many free resources out there like this one  https://officevibe.com/blog/wellbeing-at-work or if you can afford a paid app like

https://www.headspace.com/work

https://insighttimer.com/

Best of luck and let us know how you get on!

Best wishes,

Disruptive HR Team

Hi Dom,

I have also been tasked to work on this – it would be great to hear how you get on!

All the best,

Catherine

Love some of these ideas and sharing some of the things we have added in this year and last.

As above we introduced walking meetings and encouraged this to be the case for 1:1s too so that it becomes more natural rather than orchestrated.

We introduced dedicated meeting free mornings on Tuesdays (9-1) so that the team can get on with completing work without disruption.  Of course flexibility is needed but with effective expectation management with stakeholders we have seen some success.

We also pay for a mindfulness practitioner to hold an online session for the team each week to add something different.

Some teams also set meetings to end 5 mins early (e.g. 25 mins v 30 or 55 v and hour) to give people time for comfort breaks, to reset or generally avoid being truly back to back.

All of these are optional so it doesn’t become an accidental stressor if people feel their attendance is mandatory.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

Hi All,

Very useful tips indeed, thx all. Among other things, we run a remote yoga class every Wednesday at 12.00 with this fantastic trainer.
Plus, we have issued all employees with a Headspace license.

@ Nicol Dean – can you please share more details on your mindfulness practitioner, contact details if that’s ok.

Many thanks

We’re a small company and one of the challenges we’ve had is implementing MHFA’s as some of the people who’ve expressed an interest we also know are struggling with their own mental health.  Instead we’re working with an MHFA and MBCT Mindfulness trainer to do 2 things – deliver a series of short workshops ranging from awareness of mental health both individual and line managers to managing mental health through mindfulness – she is also acting as our MHFA so people can approach her directly to book a time to talk with her.