There’s a lot in the news at the moment about the UK Government trying to get more people back into work who are off with long term mental health problems. On the face of it, that seems like a good thing.
Unfortunately though, I fear that what will actually happen is that people suffering from depression and anxiety will be sent back to work in the very environments that contributed to their illnesses in the first place. I speak from first-hand experience. A crucial thing to understand in the current narrative is that “low-level” mental health problems (as the external experts have categorised them) feel anything but when you’re in the teeth of them. Tearfully dragging yourself back to work day after day is a truly awful experience that many, many people have to suffer.
My main point is this: finding new jobs for sufferers is only a sticking plaster on the problem. At the root of a lot of people’s trauma is a fundamentally broken working culture in a lot of the UK.
Many corporations don’t trust and empower their people, despite making right noises to the contrary. Their staff have no sense of agency or any sense of contribution to a greater purpose (raising the share price for the benefit of shareholders doesn’t count). Whether in manual or professional services jobs, many people are treated as an expensive inconvenience from whom as much “productivity” as possible needs to be extracted. When this is the reality of your day-to-day, fruit bowls in the office and dress-down Fridays really don’t cut it I’m afraid.
Now there are definitely some businesses out there doing the right things. I’ve worked with some great ones and also others who are taking the right steps on the same journey. But there are a lot of organisations who aren’t, despite making the right noises to the contrary.
So how might we address this? Here are a few thoughts, though far from an exhaustive list:
Focus on your people, not the bottom line
A lot of businesses spend 90% of their time obsessing over the numbers and trying to steer their people into line with the data. The funny thing is, when you employ excellent people then truly trust and empower them to make decisions and do the right things, the numbers have a habit of dropping into place naturally. This advice stands irrespective of the size of your company and the industry or sector you work in. Yes this will involve people making mistakes despite their best efforts. You need to get comfortable with this fact.
Give your people a sense of purpose
When organisations have a genuine sense of purpose that their people can get behind, staff engagement goes through the roof! I don’t mean a mission to increase the share price, or that ever-bland statement “to be number one in our sector” (what does that even mean?) I’m talking about a desire to make a real difference through the work you do. A mission to build something amazing that people will really want to be a part of. An exciting purpose coupled with a compelling vision that inspires the right people to want to join you on the journey.
“Work hard and play hard”
Lots of companies are good at the first part. And don’t misunderstand me, great organisations are usually demanding places to work. To be truly excellent usually requires it. But when everyone’s efforts are recognised and rewarded, when organisations take time off to recover as seriously as time switched on to deliver then then their people will be healthier and happier.
Take mental health seriously
Many organisations have made great strides in this area in recent years. Your workplaces need to be safe spaces where people can raise a hand and say “I’m struggling” without worrying that it’ll affect their career. We need to build psychologically safe spaces in our businesses where our staff don’t fear making genuine mistakes. Where we are safe to say “I don’t have a lot of work on, what else can I do to help.” Working in an environment like this goes a long way to minimise negative impacts on the mental health of our teams. An “awareness day” once in a while, with nothing of substance to back it up, is a drop in the ocean of a significant problem.
In ending this piece, I want to be clear that these steps are not a panacea to solve all work-related health problems. Especially not the ones related to mental wellbeing. People get ill for all sorts of reasons and proper, professional treatment and medication are often necessary too.
But whether our staff are ill because of work, or work is just an exacerbating factor to an existing condition, there is an awful lot that we can do to help with the problem.
So how about you? What could you start to change to make your place of work a truly better place for the people who work there?
Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash
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