Welcome to the September edition of the apple hr support update!
Mental Health is an important part of our business and we encourage clients to put it at the forefront of every Company, especially following the 2 years we’ve all suffered through. We thought it would be helpful to highlight the key mental health dates happening over the coming months and detail some of the mental health services we provide to support your Company to be a happier place.
As always, if you would like any help or advice with your employee-related matters, please get in touch at info@applehr.co.uk.
This year’s theme is ‘Creating Hope Through Action’. This aims to empower people with the confidence to engage with the complexity of ‘hope’.
There are infinite ideas about how you can raise awareness within your workplace and every individual business will have an idea that suits them best. You could ask every employee to write down on a post-it note something which helps them feel hopeful on a bad day and stick them to the wall in your common area or you could print out a list of phone numbers or email addresses that employees could use while having a crisis moment such as the Samaritans.
There are many organisations supporting suicide prevention. If you are looking for more information, we would recommend visiting https://thejordanlegacy.com as one organisation providing resources and support.
Whatever you do could help someone in your business, even if it’s just one person you will have made a big difference to them. That’s all that matters.
Mental Health awareness has grown tenfold over the last few years and most employers are focused on doing all they can to promote positive mental health in their workplaces.
All businesses should have at least one designated First Aider in the case of any accident or emergency in the office. Have you ever thought about having a trained Mental Health First Aider? If your answer is “Yes, we’ve already got one.”, then well done. If your answer is “No, but that sounds like a great idea.” then this could be the perfect time to do so.
A Mental Health First Aider will spot the signs of a mental health crisis, prevent it from developing any further and point the employee in the direction of the right help and support they need.
This would be a perfect time to ask for volunteers to become Mental Health First Aiders and show your staff that their mental health is at the forefront of your mind as an employer.
Movember is celebrated every year focussing on making a difference in mental health, suicide prevention, prostate and testicular cancer. This is not only a fundraising event but also one of raising awareness for men’s physical and mental health.
By putting a focus on this charitable cause, employees are reassured that you and the Company care about their health and wellbeing. After all, employees are people, not robots.
You could engage in a weekly fundraiser on a Friday afternoon. A cake sale, a step challenge a sponsored silence, or a sponsored moustache growing. Anything of the sort will boost morale and engagement within your business.
It is scientifically proven that chronic stress leads to impaired cognitive and physiological functions. We’re sure you don’t want employees to go into early retirement as they got old before their time so why not focus on stress awareness in your business before it’s too late.
Dealing with stress is not about alleviating it completely as life is inherently stressful. The focus should be placed upon making people aware of the signs they are stressed and providing a variety of techniques to reduce stress. They can then find out which one works best for them, as one size doesn’t fit all. For example, some people find a stress ball really useful, others find a five-minute meditation on their lunch hour works perfectly. It is important to remember that people are individuals.
This year, to highlight Stress Awareness Day and show employees that you care about their stress levels, you could engage in a Stress Awareness Lunch and Learn or a webinar on the most effective ways to deal with stress.
Being kind is such an easy thing for us to do but it could make a huge difference to someone who is struggling with their mental health. So why not encourage kindness in your workplace on this awareness day and if your employees like it, maybe make it a weekly/monthly/quarterly tradition.
• You could encourage your staff to perform a random act of kindness that day for a colleague.
• You could ask them to submit names of other employees who have done something kind for them.
• You could give every employee a small gift to show your gratitude for the hard work they are conducting for the business.
It’s the little things that make the biggest difference and allow employees to feel confident, valued and appreciated while at work.
How we can help you to support a culture of positive mental health…
- Mental Health Champions – a 1-day course that raises awareness of everything related to mental health.
- Mental Health First Aiders – a 2-day course after which participants are qualified Mental Health First Aiders. Our next 2-day course is scheduled for 1st & 2nd November 2021.
- Mental Health Lunch and Learns – an informal discussion between employees who would like to participate regarding mental health, questions are encouraged.
- Mental Health, Resilience and Adaptability awareness and training webinars/seminars – a series of webinars/seminars which your employees can take part in to improve all areas of their mental health, resilience and adaptability.
- Mental Health Coaching and Mentoring – as many sessions as are needed with employees who may or may not be struggling, advising them of ways in which they can improve their mental health and others around them.
