Your Responsibility

As an employer, you already know that you have a legal responsibility to protect the health and safety of your people, but…

Did you know that that includes their mental health as well as their physical health?

Under health and safety law, you must do whatever is reasonably practicable to ensure that anyone who works within, or is affected by your organisation, is protected from anything that may cause harm to their mental health and this means effectively controlling any risk that could arise in the workplace. 

As a manager, you are ultimately accountable for the performance of your team and so naturally, you have the responsibility of ensuring that they have everything they need to do a good job.

This includes nurturing a positive working environment that maximises their focus and thinking, their judgement and decisions, how they communicate and build relationships, and ultimately, how they contribute value to the organisation.

It also includes understanding the factors that contribute to compromised mental health, spotting the signs and responding appropriately.

Fortunately awareness of mental health issues at work is increasing, as is recognition of the benefits of promoting positive wellbeing.

It starts with enabling individuals to be able to identify changes in their own mental health state and to spot symptoms of compromised mental health, both in themselves and others, as well as to have strategies for helping themselves if they do.

And then enabling managers to be able to nurture a working environment where their people take personal responsibility for their own wellbeing, whilst also skilfully and confidently enabling manageable expectations and workloads, effective conflict resolution, appropriate and timely support and a desirable work/life balance.

Achieving this is not as complex as you might think.