Warwickshire Skills Hub

It is imperative that as an employer and as an employee we assure that everyone at the workplace feels secure and supported. Although businesses will vary from one to another, there is a few general actions and practices you can take to ensure that your workplace takes the mental health and wellbeing of their employees into consideration.

Remember taking care of your employees’ wellbeing will not only result in them being happier but will also result in an increase staff’s productivity, retention and resilience.

Please see some tips on how to engage with you employees and colleagues that we use at the council:

Read and share tips, guides and other resources

There is a lot of reputable organisations that share resources and advice online.

• Warwickshire County Council has a library of resources on both Wellness and Mental Health.

Whist Wellness focuses on understanding and taking steps to look after your physical and mental health, the Mental Health and Wellbeing pages directs you to available support and resources.

• West Midlands Combined Authority works to improve your mental health and wellbeing at home, work and out in the wider world.

Their Wellbeing Programmes have been established to help support people, promote healthier lifestyles, and highlight the importance of working together to create supportive environments. Whether you're a small, medium, or large organisation the programmes are designed to support your staff to feel empowered, more motivated, and better supported in their roles.

• Mind UK has an array of Mental Health at Work guides and tips.

They believe that looking after your wellbeing when you're at work is so important. They offer tips on burnout, working remotely, and looking after your staff and much more.

• Mental Health at work website offers plenty of tools, resources, and stories. Mental Health at Work makes navigating the workplace mental health landscape easy.
• Implement regular 1-1 catch ups

Whether online or face-to-face scheduling in regular 1-1 catch ups with employees gives them a dedicated time to be able to talk to you about anything that might be troubling them, make sure you don’t just focus on work and ask them how their weekend was and most importantly how they are feeling.

Implement regular team catch ups

Scheduling regular team catch ups can boost morale and not just to talk about work (although that can be useful too!), some ideas might be:

• Coffee & a chat
• Quizzes
• Taking it in turns to talk about a topic that interests you
• Shared lunch break
• Daily or weekly creative challenges for your team – examples are photos of your walks, theme doodles, themed dress days, quizzes, question of the day
• A Learning Session - if your colleague has a particular skill or interest encourage them to share it with others by setting a learning session and disseminating their knowledge. This will not only allow you to learn something new but get to know your colleagues better.

Organise broadcasts or updates from senior management

Across the council we regular broadcasts hosted by the senior managers and directors to ensure employees are up to date with any news across the council. This also gives the employees an opportunity to ask questions, offer feedback and bring ideas to a bigger table.

Create a forum

Creating a forum can give employees their own platform to discuss hobbies, interests, news and anything they want. Here at the council, we use a platform called ‘Yammer’ and there are always various conversation threads happening that anyone can get involved in. It’s a great place to be able to share ideas and be creative!

Ask your employees what they want and need

Conducting regular check-in surveys is a great way of asking employees exactly what is working right now and what might need improving. Of course, sending out surveys too often can result in survey fatigue so we would recommend a quarterly survey to keep the responses high. Once the survey results are in, make sure you acknowledge the common themes and communicate what you might do to take onboard any feedback given – employees want to feel valued and part of the conversation.

Set up ‘Listening mates’

At the Council, we have a scheme called ‘Listening Mates’. Listening Mates are volunteers who are trained, given guidance on how to talk to others struggling, how to listen and where to signpost them to in various situations. The purpose of Listening Mates is to listen to colleagues, signposting where necessary to further sources of help and information. Colleagues can talk to Listening Mates about any issue which is affecting them at work, whether it is a work or a personal issue. In particular, Listening Mates can provide support with concerns about bullying and harassment and mental health.

• Write a ‘Wellness plan’

A wellness plan is a great tool that will help you and your employees understand and be aware of the things that keep them healthy, focused and productive at work and what does the exact opposite. The plan can be shared or remain private between the employee and their manager. You may also want to consider creating a Team Wellness Plan.

Mental Health UK has resources and examples on what to include and how to use a wellness plan.

EPA – Employee Assistance Programme

You may want to consider subscribing to an Employee Assistance Programme, which would offer your staff access to information, support and guidance (including coaching and counselling where appropriate) on a wide range of topics including work/career, relationship/family, money management and debt and health and wellbeing.