One of the key recommendations from the Farmer Stevenson report “Thriving at Work” was: “Encourage open conversations about mental health and the support available when employees are struggling”.
You don’t have to be a mental health first aider, or have in depth understanding of different mental illnesses, to see someone is struggling with mental distress, to listen non judgementally and signpost them to further support.
Supporting someone is as simple as ABC (with a D for duties if you are a manager).
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Our work when we train in wellbeing conversations, is we believe to spend time honing listening skills. Our job is to recognise all the signs that someone might be struggling and not to categorise that struggle. They may indeed be struggling with a mental illness, or more likely with mental distress, with feelings of anxiety, perhaps stress and burnout – with all the things which life has thrown at them – especially during a pandemic.
The Workplace Wellbeing Virtual Conference was part of a month-long virtual event called Connect, which included the virtual Safety & Health Expo and Workplace Wellbeing Show exhibitions, in 2021.
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
