Five tips to improve your team’s mental health and wellbeing

Mental Health Awareness Week (10-16 May) is an opportunity for you to raise awareness about all aspects of mental health and wellbeing with your team. It’s a chance to check in with them and let them know help is there if it’s needed.

Now is a good time to talk about mental health and wellbeing, especially as we come out of Lockdown.

Improve staff mental wellbeing with these tips:

1. 1. Hosted by the Mental Health Foundation, this year’s theme for Mental Health Awareness Week is nature. Encourage your staff to put wellness breaks in their work calendars and leave their desks to take time to notice the trees and local green spaces. This can help reduce the risk of mental health problems and improves mood as well as concentration.

    

   2. This film encourages people to ask friends, colleagues and family ‘How are you, really?’ and be ready to really listen. It will be a be a useful resource to get people talking. It was created by us for the Port of London Authority.

    

   3. Introduce a Team Wellbeing Charter. This is something we’ve done at Tribe and it’s worked well. Hold a team meeting (possibly show the film mentioned above) and encourage everyone to pledge how they will better care for their mental health. It may be that they add wellness breaks into their day, or take an online yoga class before they start work. Or perhaps they decide to set clearer boundaries between home and work life.

    

   4. If you find that you have mental health or wellbeing concerns about a specific person, you will need to raise it with them. How can you make sure a conversation is as helpful and effective as possible? Read our tips to make sure they benefit and you’re prepared.

    

   5. On a more strategic level, health, safety and wellbeing should be integrated into every fibre of your organisation. This recent article  sheds more light on how to embed wellbeing into an organisation’s culture and we urge leaders to read the findings from our second Crisis Culture Insight Report to learn how to thrive after the pandemic.

And finally… if you’re a member of Chrysalis Culture Hub, you will have access to a range of resources to support Mental Health Awareness Week including a guide for managers, huddle cards, posters, smart messages. Chrysalis Culture Hub is an online platform with consultancy support for every aspect of your health, safety and wellbeing culture programme. Visit Chrysalis Culture Hub to learn more.

Let’s push mental health and wellbeing up the workplace agenda and banish the stigma.