July marks Samaritans Big Listen Day, a significant event dedicated to raising awareness about mental health and the importance of having open conversations. This day serves as a reminder of the crucial role mental wellbeing plays in our lives, especially within the workplace. For companies, it's an opportunity to reflect on their current practices and to consider new ways to support their employees' mental health. By creating an environment where people feel comfortable discussing their feelings and experiences, businesses can not only enhance the wellbeing of their workforce but also boost productivity and morale.

In this Q&A, Graham Quinn, Flexa partner and employer branding consultant, shares his thoughts on how companies can better support employees in the workplace when it comes to managing their mental health.

1. Hi Graham, what steps can companies take to create a more supportive environment for mental health?

Starting to audit your existing benefits package or enhancing it is a great way to start your journey toward being more supportive. Many of the same benefits that not only benefit your employees, but also boost your employer brand, and improve your DEI efforts, can be the gateway to creating an environment where everyone feels psychologically safe. 

Benefits such as providing flexibility (hours, location, etc.), subsidising gym memberships, creating new leave policies (paid miscarriage/IVF failure, carer’s leave, etc.), Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), offering competitive pay benchmarked against the cost of living, and yearly pay increases to match inflation are great places to begin!

Additionally, consider these specific benefits:

• Offering ‘mental health days’, similar to sick days.
• Build ‘On MH Break 🧠’ or other status updates into Slack, Google Chat, etc.
• Implementing wellbeing initiatives such as virtual therapy apps, yoga or meditation classes, mindfulness sessions/apps, and promoting healthy eating.
• Provide a day off for birthdays; it can be a challenging day for some employees.

Beyond that, evaluate your culture to understand whether you’re creating a healthy work environment or facing toxic issues or leaders (inequality, discrimination, bullying, etc.). Begin by gathering feedback through a special, one-off employee pulse survey or by initiating an annual mental health survey. Be sure to take action based on the feedback and/or results received; otherwise, inaction will lead to employee dissatisfaction. Review your meeting policy too, can you implement a ‘no meeting’ day 1x/week and/or limit meetings to 30 mins?

Additionally, focus on ensuring workloads are balanced and manageable, teams are properly resourced, and you’re regularly promoting mental health awareness. This can look like building a supportive culture, establishing clear policies and procedures, and encouraging work-life balance by leading by example.

Much of what’s offered here can be easily implemented and has nominal upfront costs, but it will benefit your employees in the long run by boosting engagement, increasing retention, reducing employee absenteeism, and building a mentally healthy workplace.

2. How can managers be trained to recognise signs of mental health struggles in their team members?

Build a partnership with a recognised body and offer to pay for 'Mental Health First Aid training' for your leadership team, from managers all the way up to the C-suite.

External support often provides clinical expertise and an evidence-based approach to help train managers on how to support employees' mental health in the workplace. Many of these courses cover how to recognize those experiencing mental health struggles, how to provide them with support and resources, and how to refer them to seek professional help.

It’s a great way to equip managers with the necessary skills and training to intervene when it's urgently needed or to provide ongoing guidance and support for mental health challenges, whether they arise in employees' personal lives or in their work environment.

3. What policies can be implemented to ensure employees feel safe discussing their mental health?

Hmmm… that’s a tough question! Besides ensuring you're living up to your values and that your DEI efforts aren’t performative, I’d say it’s less about implementing a new policy to feel ‘safe’ and more about leading by example.

Sure, you can create a new mental health policy that explains its importance and outlines what’s offered to support those efforts (paid mental health days, therapy, EAP, etc.)—and I actively encourage companies to do that.

However, let’s ensure we’re living, breathing, and holding ourselves to the highest standards as outlined in our Code of Ethics. We won’t allow any individual to breach those ethics; we'll commit to supporting employees who have the strength and bravery to come forward with a complaint. Should a violation be found, we’ll swiftly enact stronger measures and, depending on severity, immediately part ways with the perpetrator.

Too often, we fail employees by ignoring what they’re telling us in our eNPS, dismissing their complaints, allowing toxic behaviours to fester, being the source of their poor mental health, and ultimately losing out on their great talent because we failed to listen or act.

Let’s commit to never letting that happen again.

In my view, this is the single action that stands between employees feeling safe to share without fear of repercussions or a culture where mental health is seen as performative.

4. How can companies encourage open conversations about mental health without stigma?

Let’s regularly talk about it. We can reduce the stigma by practising to be more open, vulnerable, and by creating a culture or environment where people feel safe to share.

Leaders are best equipped to start building this culture. Let your team know when you’ll be out on leave to seek help or to take care of your own mental health. If a direct report will be, hit ‘reply all’ and thank them for their courage and bravery in coming forward to share. Take the opportunity to remind the team that ‘mental health is health’ and that it's (a) supported and welcomed to take leave when needed, (b) there is no shame in seeking help or taking time to recover, and (c) you don’t need to give 100% every day. 

“On the days you have only 40%, and you give 40%. You gave 100%.” - Jim Kwik

That being said, start naturally integrating it into conversations if the moment calls for it, but avoid forcing the topic or pressuring others to share if they’re not comfortable. 

Taking small steps to foster a more open dialogue around mental health will pave the way to eliminating the stigma.

5. What kind of support systems, such as employee assistance programs, can be put in place?

Having Mental Health First Aiders trained by a recognized body, Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), psychologists (more on this later), wellness programs, paid therapy sessions (either in-person or app-based), and hiring people managers based on their EQ can make a significant difference in proactively supporting your employees' needs.

For large organisations, employees may benefit from both EAPs and Employee Assistance Services (EAS), which include internal psychologists and/or social workers offering psychosocial counselling for work or personal problems. However, EAPs can often be underutilised due to a lack of knowledge about their benefits or the associated stigmas. Stigma’s surrounding confidentiality concerns, fear of judgement from coworkers, and reluctance to seek support.

Nevertheless, EAP service providers can assist employees dealing with work-related and personal issues such as stress, mental health, addiction, financial difficulties, and marital support. They can also provide guidance and other tools around healthy eating, budgeting, and accessing local community childcare.

Let’s better educate our team on EAPs, including their offerings and confidential nature - you can even bring them in for a ‘benefits fair’. Or let’s brand them as 'Well-Being Programs'—more bougie and a lot more appealing.

6. How can workplaces incorporate regular check-ins or wellbeing assessments for employees?

An individual’s line manager is the best, first line of defence for recognizing worsening mental health or the need for support. Managers should always check in during regular 1:1s. While it's not necessary to ask how they’re doing every time, managers are best equipped to notice changing patterns of behaviour that may warrant further discussion. Remember, 1:1s aren’t for the manager; they’re for the employee, so do your best to avoid rescheduling them.
On a macro scale, review your employee engagement surveys to identify trends company-wide, within departments, and specific teams. This can help you understand systemic issues or concerns within teams that need addressing, long before it’s too late.

And culturally speaking, don’t hesitate to host special ‘open support calls’ to help employees share how they’re feeling and provide support during challenging public issues that extend beyond work but impact employees' lives nonetheless. Merely ‘showing up’ without addressing these concerns may be seen as tokenism or performative and could harm your DEI efforts, employer brand, and all your mental health initiatives.

7. What role can peer support networks play in creating a supportive work environment?

Peer support networks, like Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), are a fantastic resource to ensure individuals from various communities feel supported, valued, and can foster friendships. They provide employees (and allies) with a safe space where they’re heard, receive help or resources for their personal lives and professional careers, and can leverage their own lived experiences to help improve organisational culture and processes.
However, they do have a drawback—hear me out!
They’re volunteer-run by employees internally who take on additional work alongside their day-to-day roles, often without additional compensation and with very little, if any, budget. It’s time we start to value their work, give them a budget, and compensate the Chairs/Co-Chairs.
That being said, having the ability to rely on a community where you feel seen is an incredibly invaluable way to boost an employee’s sense of belonging and security. ERGs can significantly contribute to ensuring our employee base is as diverse as the communities we're in, reflecting the richness of perspectives and experiences within our organisation.

8. How can flexible working arrangements contribute to better mental health among employees?

Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room: flexible work isn’t a perk - it’s a necessity.

The cost of living has skyrocketed, especially for renters in metropolitan cities without secure housing (the hidden homeless). Flexibility provides them with the opportunity to work where they can. Need to attend a morning therapy appointment or drop off/pick up a child? Flexibility allows for that. Work better later in the day than in the morning? You guessed it, flexibility. Prefer a low-stimulating environment? Flexibility helps with that too. Sometimes, winter can drag on (‘hello, darkness my old friend’), and a change of scenery to a warm destination can boost your mood - workcation anyone?!

We can’t possibly know what’s going on in the lives of our employees, as any number of issues can arise at any time. Let’s provide them with the trust, support, and flexibility to allow them to make the best decisions for themselves and know that the work will still get done.

9. What are some effective ways to promote work-life balance to prevent burnout? What role does flexible working play?

Lead by example. I get it, we talked about flexibility and working in a way that's best for us. But we can’t begin to adjust our own lives when we don’t see our leaders doing the same. Leadership needs to set an example here, such as utilising flexible work arrangements and hours, not working while on sick leave, and taking every day of holiday available.
Here are a few other ways:

Add activity blockers to your calendar and make them public. I’m not advocating for a fully open and public calendar here, but when the event falls on either side of the workday, adding specific blockers (and where one feels comfortable to), such as ‘Gym,’ ‘Therapy Session,’ or ‘Pick-up/Drop-off,’ sets an example of how you promote work/life balance. Plus, if you do go to therapy and are open to sharing, it’s another way to reduce the stigma.
If you’re sending emails outside of regular hours, be sure to add a note to your email signature to help manage expectations around when the recipient has to reply by.

Example:

“Wellbeing Notice:Wellbeing Notice: Receiving this email outside of normal working hours? Managing work and life responsibilities is unique for everyone. I have sent this email at a time that works for me. Please respond at a time that works for you.”
And let’s ensure our teams are properly resourced, not stretched thin, and that we're taking stock of our projects, prioritising only the right ones based on need and capacity.
We only have so many hours in a day, and flexible working can help us be more active in our children’s lives, care for loved ones, ensure we're looking after our own physical and mental health, and be better and more engaged employees as a result.

10. How can companies measure the effectiveness of their mental health initiatives and make improvements?

Creating a standalone mental health survey and asking for feedback once a year is a good measure to go by. Any more, and you risk survey fatigue, driving a low response rate and further damaging the ability to collect feedback in the future.
You can also add a section or additional questions around mental health to your employee engagement surveys to see at a glance how you’re performing. Questions can focus on stress levels, job satisfaction, burnout, etc. 
Don’t forget to review the comments field too; finding common threads between responses can provide unfiltered and unbiased feedback.
On the other hand, analyse sign-ups and hours spent on virtual therapy apps; the percentage of managers who signed up for MHFA training, number of incidents or reports related to workplace culture (e.g., grievances, employee conflicts, etc.), EAP utilisation rate, employee turnover rates (by business unit, etc.), or your company’s absenteeism rate.

You want to ensure you have both qualitative and quantitative data to tell a complete story.

Anyhow, there are many ways to track your mental health strategy, from employee and workplace factors to benefit costs. Hone in on what you want to achieve, find relevant metrics to track your efforts, and understand that focusing on mental health is an ongoing initiative, not a one-time occurrence.

Bonus Tip: Don’t let your efforts in creating a mental health program and measuring its success go to waste—be sure to incorporate the work done in your yearly ESG report.