Mental Health Awareness Week – May 2020

At EW Group, we are passionate about making mental wellbeing part of the conversation within businesses, and consistently weave the subject into our training and consultancy. As part of this continuing focus, we are supporting Mental Health Awareness Week 2020 by providing daily tips and resources for organisations and individuals, along with a series of wellbeing moments for our own staff and consultants.

Why mental health matters to workplaces

The topic of mental health can be occasionally overlooked in the diversity and inclusion agenda, but it shouldn’t be, given how crucial a role it plays in maintaining resilient, healthy, safe, and inclusive workplaces.

Both the human and business cases for this are clear:

• According to mental health charity, Mind, one in six workers are experiencing mental health problems
• The Centre for Mental Health estimates that 70 million workdays are lost in the UK every year due to mental health issues
• Deloitte research in 2020 found that poor mental health costs UK employers up to £45 billion each year
• According to Business in the Community, 77% of employees exhibit symptoms of poor mental health at work, and over 60% of employees cite work as the reason why.

The issue of mental health is particularly prominent in the current global context, with workers more physically isolated than they have ever been. They are dealing with job insecurity, unprecedented challenges, and change, and all beneath the uncertainty of not knowing when, or if, things will return to the old normal.

Only a sustained, targeted approach to improving workplace mental health can overcome all these challenges.

How we are supporting Mental Health Week 2020

Throughout the week, we’ll be sharing a whole host of tips and resources to help leaders and staff place workplace mental health centre stage.

Daily mental health tips

Our daily tips will include contributions from mental health and diversity and inclusion specialists, Vix Anderton, Fenella Hemus, Caroline Arnold and Teresa Norman. Within these, we will be providing signposts and links throughout to resources and organisations that will help you build a clear action plan for managing either your own mental health, or the wellbeing of your employees and organisation.

Take a wellbeing moment

Turning our attentions inward, on Wednesday 20th May at 10am the EW Group team will all be taking a wellbeing moment. There are no strict rules, we are just asking the team to join in a period of mindfulness, whether that’s during a walk, run or bike ride, or simply sitting still wherever they are.

We’ll be encouraging the team to really focus on what they can hear, see or feel, and we’ll be sharing our moments internally throughout that day, as well as on our social media channels – keep an eye out on Twitter and LinkedIn!

We’ve also asked our team to take a moment for themselves every day of that week, creating an island that makes them feel good – whatever that means to each individual. Again, we’ll be sharing some of these across our social channels.

How you can support Mental Health Week 2020

In this time more than ever, looking after both your own and your workers’ mental resilience will play a huge role in how capably you and your organisation can move forward during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

By fostering a safe environment in which mental health is destigmatised and employees are completely confident in voicing concerns and getting the assistance they need, organisations will take a huge step towards a truly inclusive culture. We hope our resources, tips and shared experiences next week will give you some support towards achieving this.

Related Reading

Mental health awareness at work
Managing mental health
The silent crisis surrounding men’s health