Mental Health Awareness Training

In this day and age, employers have a duty of care to look after their employees Mental Health as well as their physical safety. With new statistics being thrust into the spotlight every day, it is more important than ever to think about how you, as an employer, may be affecting the mental condition of your employees. You may have the best intentions in the world but, without the awareness to recognize potential disorders, plus the understanding, compassion and short and long-term solutions that my training course brings, your approach may hinder not help your employee.

According to the Mental Health Foundation, more than 1 in 7 people in the workplace will experience some form of mental problem. Furthermore, evidence suggests that a staggering 12.7% of all sickness days in the United Kingdom can be attributed purely to mental health conditions. So if you want to keep hold of your portion of the estimated £8 billion per year that is lost due to a lack of wellness support in the workplace, you really need to think about what measures you have in place to support your employees.

How Mental Health Training Helps You and Your Business

Unfortunately, this type of training is often not seen as much of a priority because many diagnoses go under the radar. People are proud, afraid to appear vulnerable or ask for help and there are still many stigmas surrounding our psychologies. However, there is a silver lining. With training, managers find it much easier to identify issues within their teams and take preventative action.

Disorders like stress, anxiety, and depression operate on a spectrum. What can start out as someone feeling a little overwhelmed, can quickly spiral into full-blown anxiety and depression. This, in turn could lead to a downturn in productivity or worse – months, or sometimes even years, of long-term work absence.

No-one expects managers to become personal therapists, but by providing your team with knowledge, competence and, most importantly, the confidence to spot disorders in their teams, you will be much better equipped to preserve and encourage good performance and productivity.

Depending on the amount of time and resources that you are able to allocate as a business, you may be able to put in place a myriad of initiatives, e.g. personal days for employee wellbeing, or company training days.

Additionally, there are also processes which can be put in place for even the most time-stretched organisations. Here, at Kate Underwood HR, we work closely with the organisation, Upskill People, who can provide convenient and effective training for managers at your convenience and online. Every training programme features a test at the end of the course so you can ensure important content has been absorbed by your manager.

Managers Who Undergo Mental Health Training Courses Can Expect To:

• Gain a better understanding of what different psychological disorders are and how they affect wellbeing and performance.
• Enhance their observational and listening skills to facilitate more confident and in-depth conversations around the topic of mental wellness.
• Improve their ability to intervene early when a problem has been identified.
• Improve their ability to manage mental health-related absences more effectively.
• Gain a much greater awareness of what are appropriate preventative measures to take when managing mental wellness cases.

If you don’t have any such measures in place or are looking at increasing your companies productivity by reducing mental health-related absences and issues, please do get in contact.