Wellbeing and mental health

There is a strong relationship between levels of employee wellbeing and motivation and performance. “Your brain at positive is 31% more productive than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed”, Shawn Achor, author of ‘The Happiness Advantage’.

Employer recommendations

➖Cocreate solutions and preventative measures. Take time to listen to employees.

'Rather than continued investment in wellbeing programs designed to treat the symptoms of employee stress and burnout, HR leaders should adopt three key strategies that can address the issues impacting employee wellness: radical flexibility, proactive rest and vocal culture', 3 Strategies to Address the Employee Well-Being Crisis, Gartner:

'Radical Flexibility: Employees can only leverage the benefits of flexibility when organizations actively encourage employees to decide what arrangements work best for them. Standard flexibility allows employees to decide when they work and where they work from. Radical flexibility, on the other hand, allows employees to also decide with whom they can work, what they can work on and also how much they work on.

Proactive Rest: Employees require sufficient rest to recover from exhaustion and fatigue, and most importantly, disconnect from work. When rest is proactively made available, accessible and appropriate, it not only helps prevent burnout but also enhances employee performance by 26%.9 Organizations should integrate intentional rest periods for relaxation, recuperation and rejuvenation. These should be a preemptive measure to prevent build-up of exhaustion and fatigue culminating into full-fledged burnout. A few common proactive rest practices are no-meeting days, quiet hours, rest/recharge hours and mental health leaves.

Vocal Culture: A vocal culture is when employees are actively communicating about not only logging off but also when they are leveraging radical flexibility and proactive rest. To spread a vocal culture across the organization, HR leaders should encourage employees and managers to be loud and vocal about their rest, personal time and space. Establishing a culture where employees feel comfortable declaring breaks, commitments, responsibilities and so on can help managers construct healthy team environments. Additionally, leverage calendar blocks, out of office and status messages to indicate flexibility and rest time'.

3 Strategies to Address the Employee Well-Being Crisis, Gartner.

CIPD have identified seven inter-related 'domains' of employee wellbeing which are health, good work, values/principles, collective/social, personal growth, good lifestyle choices, and financial wellbeing. Examples of workplace initiatives and activities to support people’s under each domain are below. CIPD says that 'effective employee wellbeing strategy needs to go far beyond a series of standalone initiatives'.

1. Health

Physical health - Health promotion, good rehabilitation practices, health checks, wellbeing benefits, health insurance protection, managing disability, occupational health support, employee assistance programme.
Physical safety - Safe working practices, safe equipment, personal safety training.
Mental health - Stress management, risk assessments, conflict resolution training, training line managers to have difficult conversations, managing mental ill health, occupational health support, employee assistance programme.

2. Good work

Working environment - Ergonomically designed working areas, open and inclusive culture.
Good line management - Effective people management policies, training for line managers, sickness absence management.
Work demands - Job design, job roles, job quality, workload, working hours, job satisfaction, work-life balance.
Autonomy - Control, innovation, whistleblowing.
Change management - Communication, involvement, leadership.
Pay and reward - Fair and transparent remuneration practices, non-financial recognition.

3. Values/Principles

Leadership - Values-based leadership, clear mission and objectives, health and wellbeing strategy, corporate governance, building trust.
Ethical standards - Dignity at work, corporate social responsibility, community investment, volunteering.
Inclusion and diversity - Valuing difference, cultural engagement, training for employees and managers.

4. Collective/Social

Employee voice - Communication, consultation, genuine dialogue, involvement in decision making.
Positive relationships - Management style, teamworking, healthy relationships with peers and managers, dignity and respect.

5. Personal growth

Career development - Mentoring, coaching, performance management, performance development plans, skills utilisation, succession planning.
Emotional - Positive relationships, personal resilience training, financial wellbeing.
Lifelong learning - Performance development plans, access to training, mid-career review, technical and vocational learning, challenging work.
Creativity - Open and collaborative culture, innovation workshops.

6. Good lifestyle choices

Physical activity - Walking clubs, lunchtime yoga, charity walks.
Healthy eating - Recipe clubs, healthy menu choices in the canteen.

7. Financial wellbeing

Fair pay and benefit policies - Pay rates above the statutory National Minimum/Living Wage, flexible benefits scheme.
Retirement planning - Phased retirement such as a three- or four-day week, pre-retirement courses for people approaching retirement.
Employee financial support- Employee assistance programme offering debt counselling, signposting to external sources of free advice (for example, Citizens Advice), access to independent financial advisers

➖The Mental Health at Work Commitment is a set of actions that any organisation can follow to improve and support the mental health of their people, pulling from the pledges and standards that are already out there, using up-to-date research, from UK employers and mental health experts.Download the introduction pack.

Wellbeing and mental health

There is a strong relationship between levels of employee wellbeing and motivation and performance. “Your brain at positive is 31% more productive than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed”, Shawn Achor, author of ‘The Happiness Advantage’.

Employer recommendations

Further information