Focus on Mental Health in the Workplace

This week we saw National Time to Talk Day 2022 which we marked at Carers UK with a drop in session for staff to discuss mental health.

Weather or not your organisation marked this day, it is important for employers to consider the mental health of their staff, particularly around this time of year. The last few years have taken their toll in terms of stress and poor mental health and even now as the days get lighter and covid restrictions are lifted, we have new concerns such the increasing cost of living.

These issues are difficult for anyone, but often even more so for working carers who will also be dealing with their caring responsibilities and trying to balance this with working life.

Many employers offer benefits such as Employee Assistance Programmes which may come in the form of a confidential helpline offering a wide range of support. It may be worth investigating this kind of benefit for your own organisation, or if you already have one, take the time to publicise it more heavily at this time of year.

If it is not possible to bring in an Employee Assistance Programme at your organisation, there are still other things you can do to offer this type of support to members of staff, such as proving safe times or spaces for people to offload or open door policies with managers so members of staff can come to them with more specific issues.