Managing Mental Health

Whether working in a small business or large business, success relies massively on happiness in the work place. Having a workforce who are stressed and unhappy can not only cause detrimental health effects but can mean losing business and reputation.

Legally, under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, employers have a duty of ensuring all members of staff are looked after and work-related illnesses (e.g. stress) are minimised.

A large number of mental health ailments, including stress, are left undiagnosed and untreated due to the symptoms being invisible. However, these invisible symptoms can become visible after a certain amount of time.

These signs include:

anxiety
headaches
tiredness
sensitivity
sweating
skin conditions (eczema, psoriasis)
weight loss or weight gain
low immunity

So, what can be done to stop the spread of mental illness in the workplace? The answer is a lot! It is important to remember these three words:

PREVENT

SUPPORT

MAINTAIN

Preventing is the first step of keeping the workplace happy and healthy. To prevent, the employer should create a relationship with their employees to ensure happiness when coming to work without feeling threatened or bullied by their employer. To do this, meetings and one-to-one talks could be held to ensure the employer and employee are constantly aware of each other and how they are feeling. Not only this, staff challenges or activities could be put into place to ensure everyone is staying healthy in the workplace. This could include putting rules into place so everyone has a break from their computer every hour or so.

Supporting could include encouraging a person to talk if they are struggling with mental health. By creating a relationship with staff, a person is more willing to talk if they are struggling with workload or even personal events. This could also mean keeping in touch if a person is absent from work due to illness, by doing this it keeps the employer in the loop as well as making the person feel like they have help.

Finally, maintaining. It is extremely important that this type of behaviour is constant throughout the whole life of the business as this ensures all staff have a healthy, happy relationship with their employees and their work!