Employee mental well-being should be a fundamental element of the boardroom agenda, on a par with physical health. Leaders should insist that regular monitoring of progress or issues is reported to the board. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has found that 70% of employee mental health problems are either directly caused by work or by a combination of work and home. In light of this, there simply is no justification for this not be a mainstream issue for leaders to treat Mental Health Training. By proactively managing mental well-being at work, leaders are not only dealing with their legal and honourable responsibilities, they are also taking good care of their bottom line as well. Absenteeism and presenteeism are responsible for losing British establishments billions of pounds, now how can this subject be ignored.
All employers ought to include shielding mental well-being into their standard operations, specially when employees and/or establishments are beginning change processes, which can be and are very challenging times for everyone. Training from the command down in proactively managing mental well-being, including offering additional support to staff or simply leading by example, is essential. Safety net support such as coaching and work health needs to be incorporated into health and well-being policies.
Leaders should be ensuring that management have a huge positive affect mental health. Good line administrators are very important in picking out early signs of distress and beginning early involvement, whereas poor line administrators could make the situation worse or even trigger mental health problems through their approach, management style of behaviour.
Leaders should be making it mandatory that comprehensive and, more importantly, mandatory mental health training for line administrators is introduced and embedded into the culture and development plans for their employees. This training and change in culture will ensure that the organisation develops employee resilience and emotional well-being.
Sadly it is all too easy to type of pension a person off on medical grounds without seeing people as more than cogs in the machine. Failing to uncover the requirement for support and the necessity for introducing policies and procedures offering support is costly in the long-term as human beings need support at times in their lives, even leaders.
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