Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace summary

What makes a job great? Ask a room full of different people and you’ll get a room’s worth of different answers. This person will emphasize the importance of a high salary, that person will stress the value of career-progression opportunities, and that person over there will say it’s all about having friendly coworkers. In short, there’s no single combination of elements that will make everyone happy at work. However, there is a basic recipe that will help everyone be healthy at work. 

The key message here is: Mental well-being at work depends on several key areas.

How can business leaders empower their employees to reach their full potential? It all starts with promoting mental well-being in the office. But although many leaders want to help their staff feel good at work, many aren’t sure where to begin. If this sounds familiar then don’t worry – you don’t need to have all the answers just yet. All you need to do is listen to your staff and learn from them.

Gaining an initial understanding of how your staff feel is crucial, because if you don’t know what the problems are, then you won’t be able to solve them.

The actions of your employer can have a big impact on your mental well-being. But if you’re an employee, you don’t need to wait for your boss to act on well-being initiatives. You can do it, too! Once you claim control of the hours in your day, you’ll hopefully start to see a transformation in how you feel.

The core of a good work-life balance is having enough time to devote to your personal needs and interests, while also being able to stick to your work commitments. Attending to your personal life, such as your friendships, hobbies, and exercise routine, is important because it's this sphere of your life that helps you to cope with the daily stresses of work.

If you’re a manager, then chances are that someone on your team will experience mental-health difficulties at some point. Although it can be tough to know what to do in such a situation, rest assured that taking any well-intentioned action is usually better than doing nothing at all.

It may be fairly easy to spot people who are dealing with some issues. They’re often tearful or withdrawn in meetings, or they take a lot of days off work. In some cases, they frequently argue with their coworkers. They may even explicitly tell you that they’ve been diagnosed with a mental-health problem.

When you have a problem with your mental health, it’s normal to feel helpless. It might even feel like you’ll never feel OK again. But when you find yourself experiencing a dip in your mental health, remember that there are things you can do to help yourself return to an even keel.

Although mental-health problems can take you by surprise, most issues arise from certain triggers. Something happens, either at work or in your personal life, that causes that first downward spiral. So it can be helpful to identify what your particular mental-health triggers are so that you can prevent yourself from experiencing them, and so avoid a decline in your well-being.