How to support staff throughout Mental Health Awareness Week and beyond

Posted 7 months ago

The 13th of May marks the start of Mental Health Awareness Week, which is an awareness campaign recognised by several leading mental health charities.

The campaign aims to promote positive wellbeing, teach people how to recognise signs of mental ill-health, and break the negative stigma surrounding mental health.

The theme of this year’s campaign is “Movement”.

Movement is important for our mental health. But so many of us struggle to move enough. We know there are many different reasons for this, so this Mental Health Awareness Week we want to help people to find moments for movement in their daily routines. Going for a walk in your neighbourhood, putting on your favourite music and dancing around the living room, chair exercises when you’re watching television – it all counts!

Mental Health Foundation

How to support your staff with their mental health

There’s lots of ways that you can support your staff throughout Mental Health Awareness Week and beyond. Whether that’s through organising activities, running internal campaigns, or any other means, the best way to promote positive wellbeing is by building a culture of support and inclusiveness and breaking the negative stigma surrounding mental health.

Here’s some of our top tips for promoting positive workplace wellbeing…

Introduce mental health first aiders

Generally, the purpose of a mental health first aider (MHFA) is to be a point of contact for employees if they are experiencing emotional distress or suffering in silence with mental health problems, such as stress, anxiety or depression, for example.

It’s a practical, ethical and productive way for employers to invest in the mental and emotional health of their staff – which reaps benefits for everyone.

It encourages employees to lessen the stigma that still surrounds mental health and encourages people to speak about emotional matters and mental struggles more openly and positively in the workplace.

Here at iHasco, several members of our team have been trained in mental health first aid and we can personally vouch for the effectiveness of this scheme!

Encourage reading of useful resources

There are countless free resources available online that offer information on promoting positive wellbeing. By sharing these resources with staff, they might just learn a thing or two that will help them manage their own wellbeing, as well as knowing how to help others.

We offer several free-to-download resources that can help employees manage their mental wellbeing, or help employers support employees in doing so. These include:

Provide online training

There are countless benefits that come from training employees about mental ill-health at work and how to manage their own wellbeing. It will help to reduce absenteeism, slow staff turnover rates, and increase engagement and productivity, to name a few.

Our Mental Health & Wellbeing Training bundle helps employees to understand how to identify & deal with mental ill-health at work.

The bundle covers key areas surrounding mental wellbeing, and includes course titles like: