Employees in Need of Emotional Support - Ways Employers Can Provide Essential Assistance
In today's fast-paced business world, the importance of prioritising men's mental health in the workplace has never been more crucial. According to psychotherapist and director of therapy and training at Red Umbrella, Nathan Shearman, the current state of men's mental health is a crisis.
To address this issue, experts suggest a series of small, everyday actions that can help create a more psychologically safe and supportive workplace culture. Here are some of these practical steps:
1. **Creating Male-Inclusive Spaces:** Establishing dedicated areas where men can connect, share experiences, and support each other is key. These spaces should be professionally facilitated to ensure safety for vulnerability and not replace but complement existing diversity networks.
2. **Encouraging Vulnerability:** Male leaders can model vulnerability by sharing their own struggles and recovery stories. This helps normalise seeking help and shows that admitting uncertainty is a strength, not a weakness.
3. **Offering Manager Training:** Equipping managers with the skills to recognise early signs of mental health issues in men and equip them with skills to have supportive conversations is essential. This encourages early intervention and creates a culture of care.
4. **Launching Awareness Campaigns:** Using positive themes like humor and strength, mental health awareness campaigns can reduce stigma, particularly among men who are less likely to seek help. Promoting Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and ensuring male mental health providers are available is also crucial.
5. **Discreet Resource Sharing:** Using discreet methods to share resources, such as QR codes linking to counseling or mental health information, makes it easier for men to access help confidentially.
6. **Building Peer Support Networks:** Informal gatherings, men's fitness or sports clubs, and wellness champion networks can foster social connection and emotional support that many men often avoid seeking.
7. **Reframing Mental Health Language:** Using practical terms like resilience building, stress management, and performance optimisation can help engage men more effectively.
8. **Promoting Work-Life Balance:** Offering flexible working arrangements and encouraging work-life balance helps men manage stress and make it easier to attend to mental health needs without fear of penalty.
9. **Incorporating Regular Wellness Activities:** Mindfulness sessions, mental health games, or stress check-ins can proactively support men's emotional wellbeing in an engaging way.
These small but strategic actions can help normalise help-seeking and show men that they are not alone in their struggles. In fact, around 37% of men admit to hiding their mental health struggles from their partners, making work a potential starting point for these conversations.
It's important to note that every workplace should demonstrate care for men's mental health through everyday actions such as encouraging honest conversations, offering peer support, and making help easily accessible. Companies like Scottish Power, JLR, and BAE Systems have already taken steps in this direction by developing employee networks to facilitate connections among men.
Moreover, using awareness weeks like Movember or Men's Health Week can serve as catalysts for opening up discussions about men's mental health. Partnerships with mental health charities, like Andy's Man Club, can help employers tackle stigma and encourage open discussions about men's mental health. Such partnerships can involve running regular wellbeing sessions for staff.
Managers are often the first line of defence in addressing men's mental health issues in the workplace. JLR, for example, hosted a series of speaker events featuring male employees and guest speakers sharing their personal experiences with mental health, which sparked empathy and conversation.
With 43% of working British men believing their employer should be doing more to support their mental health, it's clear that consistent, genuine actions are needed to make a real difference. The focus should be on meaningful, everyday actions rather than large-scale campaigns to address men's mental health in the workplace.
- Integrating mental health discussions into the realm of science and health-and-wellness can help reduce stigma around men's mental health in the workplace, encouraging the broader application of workplace-wellness initiatives.
- While promoting mens-health initiatives within companies, it's crucial to emphasize the importance of mental health support, as it has been shown that a significant number of men (approximately 37%) conceal their mental health struggles from their partners and may find the workplace a more approachable starting point for such conversations.
