I’m sorry, I was wrong…
A reflection on mental health awareness days and performance versus proactivity, within the workplace.
This blog has been sat in my drafts since May this year after Mental Health Awareness week. Today is World Mental Health Day, and it feels relevant to revisit.
As a mental health consultant, it’s obvious that my work heats up around these specific mental health dedications. I have the pleasure to work in both community and corporate settings, and I am always interested in my conflicted feelings during this time.
This year, I set myself the personal goal to lean into this discomfort, and figure out why I felt such division. Here are my findings -
Taking Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) as an example, this idea has been running for 22 years with the intention of encouraging open, honest conversation. Work establishments tend to put on events ranging from yoga, massage, and hiring people like me; taking ‘lunch and learn’ lectures for the team. However over those 22 years, our mental health pandemic has only worsened.
I love what I do, and I understand how I do it adds great value for employees, but as a more general thought, I tend to find MHA days performative and I’d rather see governmental and systemic change. One free yoga class is going to do sweet nothing to some of my global clients whose workload is so unattainable they can’t even attend it, and a fully stocked complimentary beer fridge may be more ‘fun’, than it is helpful (alcohol is a depressant, after all…)
As someone with previous mental health illness who has lived the very unsexy reality – the wait times, the severely underfunded systems, the desperation, the disrespect – I know full-well that seeing the more fruitless approach toward this ‘awareness’ is nothing short of triggering, and infuriating.
But I need to put my hands up and say I was coming on a little too strong when years ago I previously suggested they were all useless. I was reminded of this through my bookings this year.
When performing as a keynote speaker, I was consistently hit with hope. I left my lectures with queues of people asking questions, HR representatives desperate to do well for their team, and people that have never spoken openly about their own struggles until now. Most importantly for me, people kindly suggested that they felt less alone, and more hopeful and driven for themselves. It really was a tonic.
I quickly realised that these focused moments gave momentum for people to start their own journey who otherwise do not have the time.
The most common question at Q&As this year was “How do I make wellbeing impactful, not performative?” Here are a few ideas –
REASSESS YOUR BUDGET
With full disclosure, I have had businesses that turnover multi-millions of pounds wonder if I will offer my services for free for ‘good exposure’. This would have been met with open arms in my twenties. Nowadays however, this leads to a big black mark against the companies name and a reminder to not collaborate in the future.
And I get it -
Wellbeing costs money, and if you want it done well – it can cost quite a lot. But what’s more expensive? A sick workforce running on presenteeism.
Mental health related absence is at an all-time high, costing the UK workforce £53-56 billion per annum. Deloittes’ comprehensive mental health study (taken in May 2022) found the return on wellbeing investment colossal. For every £1 they spent, £5.30 would be returned by their employee in ways of productivity, engagement, and retention. *
I find a productive way of looking at a client’s budget for their wellbeing is to focus on concrete pillars of consistent workshops/classes with clear objectives, rather than lots of bitesize one-off engagements.
COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE
An open doors policy is not ground-breaking, but it bears repeating. Repeat event information on every forum, and ensure your people representatives have open doors, minds, and communication. Most importantly, it’s worth recognising that a vital skill within communicating isn’t talking but listening. Are we sitting back and allowing our staff to fill the silence with what they feel, rather than what we know? It’s tough but if you get the listening right, the staff feel validated and heard, and in turn feel cared for. Win win.
CONSISTENCY IS KING (OR QUEEN)
My favourite client is one where it is regular and reoccurring. Why? Let’s take the gym as an example –
When we go once, we may feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment, we may sleep better that night, we might see an uptake on drinking water that day…but will it make big, impactful change to our health? Probably not.
Mental health work MUST be valued and understood in the same way. The real change I have seen comes from consistent input.
My services offer a range of block availability for that reason; from quarterly check-ins, bi-monthly, monthly, and the best ‘til last…weekly. Not only does it create a safe and familiar space for employees to feel comfortable in accessing something as vulnerable as our mental health, but it also supports our brain to create those all-important new neuropathways, which strengthen and grow through the process of repetition.
In summary, I still stand by the notion of less awareness, more action. And a lot of the time, even our actions can feel quite futile in a capitalist environment with extensive workloads, deadlines, and targets.
But.
I was reminded of the crucial ripples that form when I spoke this year, and I retract any previous black and white statement. We need investment and we need it regularly to make it wellbeing done well, but these focused days might be a great starting point.
If this resonates, and your business wants to commit to the investment of wellbeing done well, click below and request a 30-minute complimentary consultancy call to see how I could support your staff retention, performance, morale, and general wellbeing.
*Stats taken from Deloittes 2022 Mental Health Study.