It's the People Stupid, Capricious Minds!

Hello and welcome to our latest edition of our monthly podcast series, It's the People Stupid. Today's topic is mental health in the workplace. following on from world mental health day in october 2023 i met with emma keble founder of anchor people and provider of bespoke well-being training and mental health first aid courses Emma joined us a year and a half ago on our podcast last year where we discussed kindness at work she kindly agreed to return and provide her expert opinion on mental health at work in particular we wanted to discuss with Emma why organisations should focus on supporting their employees mental well-being at work and how employers can access mental health support I started by asking Emma what the employer's minimum legal responsibility is to their workers with regards to their mental well-being?

So I guess the most important thing is is that employers have a duty of care to their employees. Mental ill health is covered by the Equality Act so if you've got an employee who has a mental illness that falls under disability so obviously you just need to make sure that we're not discriminating against people and we need to protect our people you know we've got health and safety in place and I guess I mean that's the law and that's the minimum of what we need to do. I think sadly we have come a long way when we talk about mental health and well-being there's a lot more awareness out there but I think stigma is still rife I think there is still discrimination that happens to employees and we know that mental health illness illnesses is on the rise it's affecting more people that we know about so I guess the minimum that we need to do is probably not enough um to support our teams absolutely yes um so in your opinion then if you take it from the minimum legal responsibility what would you say the minimum appropriate responsibility maybe um is for employers in terms of how much they should be because it because there is an argument to say and the way i suppose it maybe it used to be um and unfortunately as you say we've moved away from that but it probably used to be kind of your mental health that's your problem it's not for me as an employer to be kind of getting involved in that it's none of my business you know quite a different approach I would say to what we take now so what would you say would be a minimum good expectation I suppose yeah I suppose it's just actually having care for your team actually supporting a team um and actually just you know asking those questions being a supportive employer like you said you know it used to be the case of you know go to work leave your problems at the door and just get on with your job and that's not really the case anymore and we know and we've seen that if employers are feeling supported then they're more likely to be at work they're more likely to be thriving they're more likely to be happy and essentially as a business that's what you want because if your employees are happy and they're thriving your business is going to succeed as well so it's kind of a win-win situation really.

I saw a statistic the other day that said more than 8 in 10 UK workers expect their employer to address health and well-being which I feel like anecdotally if you were to ask that maybe pre-pandemic that would have been half that maybe. Yeah definitely and I've seen another statistic actually which links in with that that 70 percent of our staff said that their manager has more effect on their mental health than their doctor or their therapist and it's equal to that of their partner so that really ties in with that statistic that you've just said that we spend so much time at work and actually if your manager's having that much effect on your mental health then your managers need to be able to support you and you know you generally choose your partner in life don't you you don't choose your manager so it just shows how much that managers could impact on people and if we're not giving our managers the tool to be able to support people and their well-being you know where where do they get that support from so I guess those two things really tie in don't they absolutely and what would you say if you had um perhaps an HR person come to you and said look I really get that mental health and looking after our team's mental health really matters but my boss or the senior management team or the leaders they don't really get why it matters and I don't really know how to get that across to them.

Have you got any tips, any advice? It's so hard isn't it, it's really hard and supporting our team has to come from the top it has to be shown from the leaders in the business you're not going to have a culture without getting that on board from the managers on top I suppose as HR you can do your bit by giving those leaders tangible results maybe showing them how many people maybe are off set maybe looking at your attention doing a staff survey to find out what is important for your for your team and what they want and hopefully what they're saying to you because if you if some people are telling you this they're going to put it in a survey or you're going to have those tangible results and sometimes those results kind of speak more than you just going and saying it and if you can show and show examples of how what you can put in place and what that return on investment is then actually that that money talks as well sometimes with people and once those results start coming in then hopefully it can start to change that culture absolutely definitely having established that we believe employers should actually be doing more than the legal minimum requirement in terms of supporting their team's well-being i asked emma what that looks like for organizations and managers so i think sometimes um well-being or mental health strategy that can come across as quite scary sometimes people are quite fearful of it because um of what those words mean and people are worried about saying or doing the wrong thing um and actually in reality um it's not necessarily about those big gestures it's about the small things um so we talk about you know creating a supportive culture sometimes that just starts with having a conversation with your team member um finding out about their hobbies find out what they like doing asking them what they've done at the weekend or what they've got planned at the weekend and following up on that conversation because those types of conversations can be really powerful you can find out so much about what an employee's doing or what they're not doing find out you know you can find out little hints about actually about their well-being whether they're coping or not and actually if you're talking to your team when they're in a good place they're more likely to talk to you when they're not in a good place if you're not showing any care when they're actually well you know there's at no point are they going to want to come and talk to you when they're not well so I think it's all about those those little things and those small steps that show that you care about people but you picked up a really good point there Emma that I that I think it's definitely something that we hear of people saying that they're fearful of it um and actually what if I get it wrong and especially if you have somebody that's in a really quite a bad place um sometimes there's a bit of I'm just I don't want to touch it because what what if I'm what if I made it much worse I think often um we're often so scared about saying the wrong thing that we don't say anything at all and that often can do more more harm than it can do good because we're scared of what we might say um when actually if we're just ignoring an issue or something that's happening if you're not giving an outlet to somebody when they may need to talk and often it isn't about having to solve a problem for somebody it's just about being a person that can listen to them um having someone that you can work through things together and explore things together um and not being afraid of it um but I completely appreciate it's really really hard if you haven't had to deal with it before yeah um I think signposting as well I think sometimes um there's a feeling that potentially somebody in HR for example because it's something to do with people they might have no qualification they probably don't have any qualifications in that sort of thing apart from maybe which we'll move on to in a bit but mental health first aid but any other qualifications in it um actually signposting I think is is a big thing as well you don't have to deal with it all yourself no No, not at all.

And actually there's so many places out there. Google can be a great friend, but also it can be like a terrible thing for getting misinformation. So I'd always say like if you're going to go out and signpost, look at places which you recognize, you know those big charities you know like Mind or Samaritans those types of places But a lot of those places as well offer support for employers or offer support for people who are supporting others and helping you to decide you know what you need to do and what you need to say and there's nothing wrong we've not known the answer straight away that you know you don't ever have to come back to somebody straight away and it might take a little bit of time and as long as you're telling somebody that you know maybe look at it together or say look let me go away and have a think of what I need to do and then you can you know maybe get to go through it together.

One of the best ways you as an organisation or manager can better equip yourselves to support with mental health at work is to take a mental health first aider course so I asked Emma to explain a bit about what the course entails. So I think the easiest way to describe a mental health first aid course, and I will maybe refer to it as MHFA because I completely understand it's an absolute mouthful, is mental health first aid is really similar to physical first aid. So most of us are aware what physical first aid is.

You have physical first aiders to support someone who may have just had an accident or need some initial support. And the first aider will probably have a look and decide what kind of professional needs to support. So whether they need to call 999 or whether they need to go to a GP or whether they just need a bandage and a cup of tea and then they'll be OK. Mental health first aid works in exactly the same way.

So mental health first aiders are taught how to recognise signs and symptoms that somebody may not be coping very well, to recognise signs and symptoms of distress or that someone's experiencing a crisis and provides initial support for that person. It doesn't train anybody how to be a a therapist or a doctor it is just to provide that in between about whether actually this is something more severe and we need to get some emergency support or where to signpost someone to or actually does somebody just need a chat and a cup of tea and some support.

The other thing that mental health first aid is really good at doing is teaching people how to have that supportive conversation how to be empathic um often like you just said earlier you don't know what to say people are scared of saying the wrong thing um you don't know what language to use um and mental health first aid really helps with breaking down those barriers um and hopefully um decreasing that discrimination and that stigma that exists around mental health it's particularly in the workplace but mental health first aid could be used anywhere in any walks of life i guess exactly the same like you say as physical first days exactly exactly thing and like you say when when you train somebody to do physical first aid you're not training them to be a doctor or a um you know a qualified practitioner you're just training them to kind of hold the fort i guess until something more may or may not yeah exactly and i think the important thing with mental health first aid as well is that you know we discussed earlier it's so common um physical first aid it's a law isn't it it's a law that workplaces have to have physical first aid as mental health first aid um it's currently going through the government at the moment to become law it's not quite there yet um but I think it can only be a good thing really um not to put a down on what we're talking about now but statistically you're more likely to bump into someone with suicidal feelings than you are someone who's about to have a heart attack yet as we've just talked I guarantee there are more people who know how to give CPR than know what to say if someone came up to you saying those things and I suppose you know that is an extreme example but as we've just talked about you know those people your numbers of people that are on the rise and I think mental illness is the biggest reason why people are off sick on long-term six so absolutely i think there's been a huge rise in that so the average number of days off per employee in 2019 was 2.

19 days per employee and now it's on 4.8 in 2022 that may have gone up in 2023 um and a cost of about 705 pound per employee per year that that's huge a double rise in just a few years as well do you think that's a rise in cases or a in recognition or a combination of the two? I think it's probably a combination of the two I think you know as we talked earlier people are being a little bit more open I still think that that's a reserved estimate I still think there are people who don't tell people they come into work when they're not very well we've got people who may not give the real reason why they're off sick so I think it might be reserved really.

I guess yeah there's still stigma around it it's difficult to ring up and say you can ring up and say I've got a tummy ache I've got a headache but I'm just feeling yeah not myself yeah I'm just not feeling myself yeah doesn't really sound like actually get your clothes on and come into work it doesn't yeah completely completely agree moving on I asked Emma whether she has spotted any common mistakes companies tend to make in their mental health provision or indeed lack thereof?

I think in general I think people have good intentions and companies have good intentions but well-being should never be seen as like a tick box exercise. We're all completely different people, we all think, we all feel, we all behave in completely different ways so actually what one person may need can be completely different to another person so it should never be kind of a blanket approach to everybody um i have two bugbears of what people do do um i suppose the first one would be um companies that have got amazing support services so things such as employee assistance programs counseling but their teams actually don't know about it um they may be told about an induction but actually it's kind of just left and then you know leaders of companies look at them and say no we haven't got the usage rate so actually do we still need to have this and actually it's not nobody's fault apart from the fact that people don't know about it I think as companies that we need to just keep you know telling people reminding people about what you've got because if people are reminded when they're well they're more likely to go to these places when they're not well I heard of a brilliant thing so you know Stephen Bartlett who does the diary of the CEO yeah um his company provides counselling for all of their team members and it's a it has to be an opt-out so everyone is automatically opt-in for counselling and therapy and the idea is is it starts to decrease that stigma um it shows that even if you're well therapy can be an amazing thing so they have that opt out like you know you would do with pensions and he said it's really started to like you can see the difference of those open conversations which i think is a really brilliant initiative yeah that's really good and the second one is um companies who provide mental health training but then actually there's no follow-up there's no action plan um companies that leave their mental health first aiders on their own and that that's not their shoulders it's not their cross to bear um so it's really really important that you kind of buy into it from the start i've done some amazing sessions um which have had like ceos or managing directors on the same session as managers and team members and i think it works both ways the leaders of the company can see what's being trained to their teams and actually with their buy-in it's more likely to be rolled out more likely to be talked about in the company but also on the flip side you know you've got employees who are seeing their leaders as humans um mental health doesn't discriminate so the fact that they're kind of standing up there and saying you know these things can help me as well um is a really valuable tool absolutely um you said something in there that just made me think of kind of our previous question as well um you said about the fact that um mental health the approach to it isn't a one size fits all and I think that is the reason why people are a bit more scared of mental health aid first aid than physical first aid because actually it's a bit more of a one size fits so if you're having a heart attack there's actually a very specific thing you're meant to do for CPR exactly where you need to be exactly how you need to do it and if you follow this list of instructions you've got a good chance of making a difference whereas yeah like you say there isn't that same that if there isn't that same approach if somebody comes to you with suicidal thoughts you don't go right let's bring out the list of things that I need to say and that will just fix that yeah and it isn't there is a checklist um there is an action plan that you do in mental health first aid but again it is a lot more broad you know it isn't about you know what is your a your b your c yeah um but again it just about like I said earlier a lot of it is about being human it about being a good person it about being kind it about having making time for somebody um and actually checking back in on somebody so there are certain things in mental health first aid which is a little bit like a checklist um but obviously gives that skills you know it's never going to be the same You know, you're never going to talk to one person with depression and then speak to somebody else and be like, oh, I know all the answers now because I've spoken to somebody with depression just before.

Everyone's experience is completely different. But learning how to listen to someone and those active listening techniques and having empathy, those techniques are the same. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. next I asked Emma once they've sought the buy-in they need from senior management what role can HR take in supporting the mental well-being of the workforce this question made me laugh when I saw it because my background's HR so I completely understand how if there's a topic or a box that doesn't fit it becomes HR's responsibility so I always used to be the person had to like organise leaving presents things like that but well-being seems to become like a HR responsibility and realistically I don't think it should be a HR responsibility I think it should be a manager's responsibility and HR are there to support the managers and maybe help them with the tools um just like they would do like if they had I suppose any ER issues that kind of thing to support people through it's not their responsibility however there are things HR can do like we spoke about earlier is like tracking trends things like making sure you know when people are leaving the company and exit interviews that there's questions there about well-being questions about how people are treated you know if you can see trends of I don't know maybe complaints or grievances then actually we maybe we should be asking those questions and building with those managers and the leaders of the company to say look what can we do to then support people with this but also I think leaders of the company should always think about their HR people as well because where do they go to get support because actually it's really hard you know who can they go and talk to and kind of let off you know hot steam and say you know I've had a bad day or this has happened or um yeah I think it's you know sometimes they kind of get forgotten sometimes yeah and they're humans too and if they're taking on the emotion of everyone else around them as well.

I suppose it's not particularly mental health, but when a few years ago, my old company, I had a miscarriage at work. Well, I wasn't at work. It was when I was working there. I had a miscarriage and I had two weeks off because I had to have an operation.

And on my first day back, someone asked to speak to HR and it was because they just had a miscarriage. But no one knew the reason that I'd been off because I ended up saying it was tonsillitis because I did get tonsillitis and it was easier to just announce that in the office. And that feeling of kind of, oh my goodness, I can't say to this person, I'm going through it too because that's not appropriate. In the end, I did, but not immediately.

And that feeling of they've come to me because they think I'm the right person for this. But I don't really know any better than the next person. In fact, I'm struggling with that myself. um so that feeling of yeah kind of why does it fall on that role it is an interesting role um and and and and I was fine and we talked about it and it was all right and she was supported and I've now since got my little girl so it's a happy ending I guess but um but yeah it is a really difficult um thing of that kind of where's the support for for HR in that point of view you're taking on everyone else's emotion where can you where can you put that yeah exactly and um firstly I'm so sorry I had to go through that but secondly one of the things that we actually talk about in our mental health course and I suppose it's relevant for HR as well is having those boundaries having those boundaries being able to know actually are you able to support somebody because you know essentially it's your you know you yourself you have to protect yourself first before you can support other people and if you're not in a good place or if it's too close to home or actually any of those things you're not you probably won't be the most effective support or you're just gonna set yourself back so sometimes it's about being able to set those boundaries and thinking about who else who who are you support people who can you go to to say hang on a second you know I can't I can't deal with this do you feel comfortable to be able to say you know I can't deal with this is there someone else that can deal with it yeah or is there yeah is there sufficient management support there yeah to kind of yeah check in on you and that you can go to and say I'm struggling with this and yeah outside support like we talked about before and time posting with all of this in mind I asked Emma if she had any handy tips on how to easily support mental health in the workplace I suppose what I talked about earlier it's not about the grand gestures um so thinking about things like making sure that there are clear well-being check-ins with your team so whether that's at one-to-ones whether that's at team meetings um and it doesn't like i said earlier about a ticks box it doesn't have to be formulaic you know you don't have to have like a question that says how's your well-being think about creative ways that you can do it but it creates that expectation that you're going to ask and team members know when you're going to ask because actually if there is something wrong they know well I know my manager's going to ask me at this point so I can plan and prepare and if you know if you don't have that in place you know when are they going to ask you when is the right time to ask you.

It could be creative about going for walking meetings which are brilliant because it gets you out the workplace and you're not actually directly looking at each other so it can be easier to talk about things and I think the important thing is when you're talking and asking people about well-being is being genuine in the question because people are going to know if you're not being genuine. I suppose the other things that you can have a look at doing which are easy is getting involved in awareness days and promoting them doing special activities but again making sure that when you're doing it you are being real about it because actually if you're shouting about on social media about how much you look after your team but then 11 months of the year you actually haven't got these things in place your team are going to see that and see through it but awareness days are brilliant for raising awareness they're brilliant about opening those conversations in work I think the last thing as well which is one of the things that I'm most passionate about is actually about managers leading by example so like what we call like self-care role modeling so even if you've never told your team that they have to have their emails on their phone that they have to respond to emails in the evening or check their emails while they're on holiday or on their days off if you do it it's kind of as a manager it's a silent expectation that that is the culture um and if you're not looking after yourself your team are going to mimic that behavior and it's can happen so quick that that culture can be embedded um so as a manager it's really important that you are kind of showcasing those behaviors looking after yourself taking your breaks um i recently challenged somebody um who i knew was always working through their lunch so they I knew that they always every Monday to Friday would eat their sandwich Katie I'm gonna challenge you I'm gonna challenge you always eating their lunch at their desk and I said just try it just try it for one week have half an hour out it doesn't have to be your whole lunch hour just have half an hour away eat your lunch either in the canteen or go for a walk and tell me that you haven't achieved as much as you did when you're eating at your desk and then there we go that can be a wager Katie you can come back and you can tell me I'm deleting but we do know you know if you take time away from your desk if you take time away from your work you will be more productive and actually you'll feel better as well so yeah has to be a win-win situation absolutely it's a really good point and on the email point we have a client and I always notice it when she does it and she's a director of the company and she has um in her email like under her email signature um but it's quite prominent um it says I have sent this email out of my hours because that works for me to work flexibly like that however I do not expect you to read it in that time I expect you to read it in your working time that works for you because there is that bit of yeah well actually what if it is easier for some people to work maybe after they've put the kids to bed they might just prefer to work that way it doesn't doesn't work for me that's when I like to have my relaxing time but it's it's not the same yeah and I completely agree and it that in that case that someone who set they told you that this is what the expectation is they told you I suppose the difference is is when it never really said that actually like I never told anybody to work late so actually it's not my fault but if you're role modeling that behavior then people are going to copy that behavior and again everybody's different every circumstance is completely different um but I guess you know it's making sure that you know you've got some things outside of work as well maybe some hobbies some things that you can share all those kind of things are really really important I'm terrible for having hobbies I've had this conversation I think it's having a four-year-old and a seven-year-old it turns out my hobbies are taxi driving we were talking about this the other day about having second paid employment and I was like what about unpaid employment on the weekend does that does that count because you're talking about being knackered when you come back to work having a four-year-old and a seven-year-old does that for and it's really really hard and so many people you know it's really really hard and don't get me you know I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but sometimes it's not about doing those big things it's about doing little things as well so um I you know just can you read like one page of your book before you go to sleep those kind of things can you take I don't know maybe listen to a podcast on your way home from work hey maybe people stupid that one yeah exactly it's a brilliant one great guests um but maybe it's just taking those those tiny little things out for yourself and yeah no I understand it having children or life is just anything is you know we're so we're so busy and we're so available all of the time that it's really really hard but yeah just to be conscious over I suppose is the big thing and yeah I really like your point about setting an example that thing of kind of if you're in a senior management position or whatever um and not being that person I have I have a bugbear with it and Anthony needs to take note but I have a big bugbear with that oh I never take all my holiday I never get chance to take all my holiday I cannot fathom that that is probably my hobby taking holidays yes and like having holiday and using it is so important to me um and um and again setting that that expectation of I'm giving you this holiday I expect you to use it and rest during it and actually switch off during it and yeah that's again it's that kind of setting example or saying you know I'm not going to be in next week because I'm going to sports day or nativity or I don't know taking my mum somewhere or whatever that looks like and kind of saying you know I'm doing these things I don't you know I expect you to have it's fine to be that person you don't have to work all hours no exactly and I suppose it's about being like your true self at work isn't it you know you know I need to go to sports day and allowing people to have that time off for sports day but then they're not feeling indebted that they have to like catch up or work late or you know it's you know an hour out of their working life and generally you know nine times out of ten the majority of your staff will be people that care and people that will work hard and actually if you're able to be flexible with people like that then you know you'll reap the rewards because they will be more loyal to you and know that you know remember those times that you gave them those times off so that they can celebrate them so I can't really get over the pace at which this has changed because I don't feel like I've been in work for that many years um I guess I started work oh actually 18 years ago that is actually more than I realized half my life um but um but um but I remember one of the hotels that I used to work at used to have because I worked on hotel reception and it's very customer facing you've got to be happy and smiling and that's kind of part of the job and I remember we used to have a poster on one of the doors walking into reception that said have you I can't remember the exact wording but basically have you left yourself at the door and come in ready to work and that is I mean a full 360 and that's that's probably only I don't know just over 10 years ago that that was up yeah it's really not that long ago and I had this conversation and I talk about this when I did my training sessions so um the reason why I do what I do is because when I was in my 20s I really struggled with my mental health and when I was at work I didn't tell anyone I was mentally ill I didn't tell you know I didn't tell my boss I didn't tell my colleagues.

I barely told my friends because, you know, I thought people would look at me differently. They would judge me differently. I was really ambitious at the time. I wanted to be, I wanted to progress through the routes.

And I thought that if I told people, then they would look at me differently. There is no chance that at that time, and we're probably about the same age, aren't we? So it's not that long ago, probably 15 years ago. There's no chance that time that I would have sat in a mental health awareness session.

Mental health first aid, although it was in the country only just, you know, I'd never heard of it until probably like six or seven years ago. So things have properly changed for the better, really, you know. I really do think they have. But yeah, it's just changing quickly, which hopefully will continue to change quickly.

And the more we can talk about these things, then hopefully stigma starts to decrease a lot more definitely yeah I completely agree and also I think setting maybe some points around you talk about the awareness days and how it's good to get involved but making sure the remaining 11 months of the year um uh it's a priority and so maybe setting like some checkpoints of I don't know um in fact I saw you posted the other day like one week post world mental health day but actually companies looking at what they're doing three months after World Mental Health Day and what they're doing six months after World Mental Health Day and if it was World Mental Health Day again could they say there's really been any progress since what they posted six months ago on social media you know are they actually making that change how can companies other than perhaps doing check-ins is there any other ways that companies can perhaps show that they're doing more than just what they say they're doing on one day a year I guess I suppose if you're going to go fully into like more of a well-being strategy I think you do need to plan it as like it as a 12-month schedule think about who you're targeting think about um you know um well-being mental health affects everybody so it's great to give managers training but do we what do we need to do for team members um do you know have a look at what um awareness days that there are out there have a look at um are our current schemes fit for purpose are they what people still want you know maybe have you know talked already about surveys have those surveys maybe every couple of months and it doesn't have to be like you know I'm not a big fan of the massive employee survey anyway but just like a quick maybe five questions about what what would you like to see whether it's doing things like one of my favorite things is like bring dogs to work those kind of things you know pepper normally is in our office she's got her own but things like that are brilliant for you know just you know people having a little bit of downtime um having a little bit of bit of support those kind of things making it a fun environment you know we talk we talked a lot about the negative a lot of that a lot of it is about you know celebrating people a lot of it is about recognizing achievements all those types of things all making people doing things for charity you know um if you're doing kind acts we talked about kind acts last time i was here but it makes you feel good about yourself um so yeah there's lots of lots of things you can do and maybe plan them sporadically throughout the year so and all of a sudden you've got a well-being strategy and and a lot of it is what you you were doing already um so i think sometimes people kind of get scared of putting things in place when actually a lot of the time people are already doing it brilliantly i think that's a really good point shout about it yeah let people know you're doing it so they can recognize it um i saw the other day that the the top three reasons that people to select a job are salary flexibility and the number three is health and well-being support um and like you say probably a lot of people are doing more than they realize they're doing um but if you don't shout about it if you don't put it on your job adverts if you don't let people know what you're doing both internally and externally people won't know you're doing it exactly exactly i'd like to say a huge thank you to emma keble for joining us to discuss mental health in the workplace and i hope you picked up some great strategies that you could start implementing straight away for more information on emma's mental health first aid of course please do get in contact with us and we'd be happy to share her details thank you for listening and see you next time Thank you.