Mental health in the workplace – what it means to me

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Margot, Diversity and Inclusion executive, Pharmaceuticals, Dublin

My job is essentially to bring out the best in our people and their sense of belonging. Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have spoken about mental health and well-being at work, personally or organisationally. There wasn't a psychologically safe opportunity to say you had a mental health challenge, but fortunately that has changed. Covid was the big turning point, but it’s a challenge to continue to emphasise the importance of mental health support.

Poor mental health is a massive reason why people are either out of work or not productive, I think it's much more common than we're probably aware of. In our business, we think training our leaders to be aware of our values of respect and honesty is really important. I always start conversations with someone in my team by asking them how they are; this morning I spoke to a key member of my team, and the first ten minutes of the call was just catching up on how they are doing. I know when I’m with my manager I get the same, it’s an encouraged behaviour. However, as anyone will tell you, the busier you get, the opportunity to take time for those kind of 1-1s is reduced.

Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) are basic tools that we have in place, but only in some of our locations. As an employee it can still be hard to find your way to the resources available. You would need to speak to your manager who would then go to the HR representative, who will give you the link or the number to an assistance programme. Ideally, we’d have an easily accessible assistance programme for every site in every country. At the moment, the number of people who use the programme is really small, because most of them don't even know about it.

Some parts of the world don't see mental health as something that the workplace should be responsible for. For example, I was in Switzerland recently and they don’t even talk about things like menopause.

Talking about mental health is an issue that’s very personal to me, and I know how valuable it is. When my partner of 18 years and I broke up it was particularly difficult, and work was one of the things that really helped me. I’m a gay woman and I felt very safe in the organisation, I felt comfortable telling my line manager and talking to my colleagues to share what was happening to me. That really helped me to feel my workplace was supporting and helping me.

I don’t think any workplace has solved the overall issue of mental health in the workplace. There’s often marketing around the idea, but the lived reality often falls down. We need to continue to be mindful of it.

Lucas, Creative director, Amsterdam

I’ve always been quite an anxious person, a bit of an ‘over-thinker’ some might say. As a result, I’ve often struggled when having to deal with difficult periods in my life. When issues have arisen one at a time, I’ve been able to cope, but when they arrive all at once it becomes too much for me.

In recent months, a string of circumstances has been negatively affecting my mental health. My father, who I was very close to, passed away a few months ago. My family live three hours away and I had been working long and stressful hours on a significant project at work, so there was a lot of travel involved to help support my mum and sister. On top of this, I was living on my own in a new city. With everything at work and my family life I barely had the time to pay attention to myself, so my diet and fitness went out the window, and I found myself drinking more often. I felt very isolated.

I decided that I had to speak to somebody at work, so I approached my line manager. Luckily, she was very empathetic. She immediately put me in touch with HR, who explained their EAP (Employee Assistance Programme). This led to me starting counselling, and they have implemented some CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) to help me deal with overwhelming problems in a more positive way by breaking them down into smaller parts. My manager also set up regular meetings to check-in with me, just informal chats – we call them our Wednesday walk-and-talks. We’ve had one every week since I approached her even though I know she’s been very busy with work, which I really appreciate. It hasn’t been long but having that support network has already massively helped me.

Naturally, I still have days when I feel stressed and anxious, but by using the techniques I’ve been taught in counselling I feel much better equipped to deal with it. I’ve also found my work colleagues to be very supportive. You don’t realise that many people are battling with the same issues until you have a good, open conversation.

I’m so grateful for the support my company has offered me and would certainly encourage anyone in a similar position to do the same and approach their manager. It’s not always widely communicated, but the support is probably there if you need it.

Hannah, temporary hospitality worker, Oxfordshire

Temp work suits me because it’s so flexible, however the downside is that flexibility works both ways. For example, I can cancel shifts two days before, but so can my managers. When you’re relying on the money it can be very stressful if work suddenly disappears, so it can often be a precarious way of working.

Another aspect of being a temp is that you’re going to a new place for work every day and you don’t know anyone, so finding where you're going, where the staff car park is, your way around the venue, where you can safely leave your personal belongings, you just have no idea. And that’s before you even start work.

In my experience, there really isn’t any mental health support as a temp worker. Firstly, you’re never in one workplace long enough to build a relationship with a manager, so it’s difficult to go and talk to them if you have a mental health issue. With permanent workers the managers will check in on them, but even if those managers wanted to help us it’s probably not realistic to expect to be supported by them.

Unfortunately, in my experience the recruitment agencies offer very little support themselves. All our agency shifts are booked on apps or through phone calls, so you don’t have any human connection with your recruiting managers. If you have an emergency and can’t work the shift you’ve been given there’s no support, and sometimes you get labelled as unreliable and can lose out on shifts. My friend once had a family situation, she took it up with the agency, but they handled it really badly, got angry with her for not turning up for her shift and stopped booking her. If she had a better connection to her manager, I’m sure that could have been avoided. On lots of shifts you’re only there for a few hours, so your managers wouldn’t know if you had a mental health issue.

Adrian, senior orthopaedic surgeon, Oxford

Interestingly enough, the surgery is not always the most stressful part of my job, it’s more the things you have no control over. Managing your patients through the system, through waiting lists and support facilities, is often the most difficult. I find there are so many barriers to working in the NHS at the moment which can be very stressful when you really care about your patients.

Surgery can obviously be stressful in itself. As a consultant and a surgeon when you’re in the operating theatre, the responsibility is on your shoulders. I find the key to mitigating stress is preparation and putting a routine in place. That can be little things like the theatre cap or the gowns you wear to more significant things like having the team of people you work best with. When that routine is missing it can make the working environment more stressful.

My colleagues are my best support network when things get difficult. I’ve recently been dealing with a difficult patient who I was sure would file a complaint, so I spoke to my colleague who said they’d had a similar situation and they gave me advice. That patient eventually did complain, and some of what they said was really nasty. That is really hard - when a patient says you don’t care, in reality we wouldn’t be here if that were true, and my colleagues understand that best.

The NHS trusts do often speak about welfare, and staff have been given free access to a number of well-being apps to support their mental health, such as Headspace.

As a more senior doctor, I do feel a responsibility to support others. We’ve introduced things like dual consultant operating to relieve stress on new consultants carrying out difficult procedures. Initially we got push back from management, asking why they are paying for two consultants for one surgery, but fortunately they now recognise that buddy-ups with senior doctors and peer support is crucial to limiting stress and ensuring better patient outcomes.

Three key takeaways:

1. Encourage communication

   Building positive manager-employee relationships is crucial to supporting the workforce. Employees need to have someone they feel comfortable speaking to. Line manager training and the option to talk to a trained mental health first aider could be part of the solution.

2. Make mental health resources visible

   Managers must signpost how and where employees can access mental health resources anonymously. Workplace notice boards with QR codes and regularly updated information posted on the company intranet can help solve this.

3. Managing the work environment to reduce stresses

   Resources are not necessarily sufficient. Tackling the underlying causes of stress, such as understaffing or micromanagement, is necessary to reduce workplace stress.

   Across all industries there are challenges and improvements that can be made to how mental health challenges are supported. Resources are not always easily accessible and when business is busy, mental health often drops lower on the list of priorities. This is why taking the 5% Pledge for managers and leaders to devote 5% of working hours to support workplace mental health is one easy step to ensuring greater employee satisfaction, productivity and well-being.