Wellbeing in the workplace

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There has been an increase in things like anxiety and depression.
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You don't have the capacity to do the work that you do, makes people incredibly anxious
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and this then has flow-on effects both to their productivity,
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but also to their broader mental health.
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People are investing more time, money and energy
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into themselves because they're realising that the pace that they've
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been operating in is not sustainable.
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Depression is due to overtake heart disease as the most as a common health issue
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by next year, and that's the World Health Organization's data.
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We may be richer as a planet but we're not happier.
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We've been reaching out to a lot of businesses and talking about
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corporate wellness, and there's much more interest in it, I think, from higher up in
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small to medium sized businesses that we've approached, to see
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what do they do to look after their team, as an experience as an employee, an experience
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being self-employed, and now as an employer. I think for businesses your
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staff or your best assets and so if you can look after the people who work for you,
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your business will thrive.
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Our mental health is a thing, just like our physical fitness is a thing.
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If we practice it, if we do certain things on a regular basis
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then we'll get stronger in our minds as well as our bodies.
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And again we tend to do those things more if we are
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encouraged to do them by others, so if a workplace for example or a school
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develops a culture of promoting well-being and promoting positive mental health,
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then people are going to be influenced by their peers and
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be encouraged to participate.
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If there is true interest from higher up
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and encouragement for employees from their employers, like if they feel
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like their employers have buy-in, that they actually do want them to be well
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rather than the Health and Wellness Committee ticking a box to say "oh yeah we
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look after your mental health and here are the reasons you know why and
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how we do it", versus an HR team or owners or directors that are actually
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passionate and authentic around wanting to look after their staff, like there is
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a difference, and I think employees feel that.
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If you want to recruit the best staff, then having employee assistance programs or positive wellness
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things in place is, going to make you an attractive employer. So I think that there are both,
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it's the right thing to do - it actually makes sense to the bottom line,
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and it has long lasting consequences that potentially protect the future security
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of your companies.
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Encourage people to get out and be active and again talk
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about how does this make us feel not just the fitness side of it,
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so build positive mental health and well-being into the sort of the day-to-day language
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of the workplace.
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For some people it's religion, other people it's nature,
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other people it's meditation, like being able to look at a human being from a holistic
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perspective and what their needs are, that to me what wellness is, is looking
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at the whole picture and not just picking one or two things.
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I think if I ran the world, I would have businesses take this very seriously, have a look at their
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health and safety policies, explicitly integrate mental health into that,
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so that it's both overtly acknowledged that this is something that's important,
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but also that then leads on to having processes around managing it.
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And as I say, at the end of the day that helps the business' bottom line,
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not just the employees' well-being