Connecting with others is an essential part of good mental health. Considering that we spend so much time working, building relationships and connecting with our colleagues it is vital to maintaining mental health. It’s much easier to feel in sync with our colleagues, especially in a remote environment, when employee wellbeing and relationships are at the forefront of an organisation’s mind.
The past two years have shown that mental health and wellbeing in the workplace has become a priority for employees. In SuperFriend’s 2020 Indicators of Thriving Workplace survey, where over 10,000 employees were surveyed, 93.9% of workers stated that their workplace would benefit from investing in mental health and wellbeing. With one in five employees in Australia likely to be affected by a mental health condition and approximately three million Australians experiencing anxiety or depression in a year [1], ensuring that employees feel mentally healthy and safe in the workplace is something that needs to be seriously considered by employers. It is also a legal requirement for employers to ensure the health and safety of their employees, and this includes management of both physical and psychological risks.
Flip that proposition though, and you reveal a much more positive opportunity for companies. By promoting good mental health at work, they can keep people well, reduce sick leave, and build reputation, loyalty and performance. This can be seen through measurable benefits to investing in workplace mental health and wellbeing. Improvement in workplace mental health can improve productivity, lower employee absenteeism and produce happier employees, plus on average, every dollar spent on building a mentally healthy workplace will have a return on investment of 5:1 [2].
That all sounds great. But where do you start?
A workplace mental wellbeing audit?
Start with a workplace mental wellbeing audit. There are a number of reasons that you may want to conduct one - you may want to ensure you’re addressing requirements under WHS legislation, or check to see if you have the systems and support in place to increase employee productivity or see positive change and improve the mental health and wellbeing of your staff.
A workplace wellbeing audit provides businesses with a picture of their mental health and wellbeing landscape, identifies strengths, weaknesses and areas of opportunity.
Depending on the business objective, the audit process involves review against evidence informed workplace mental framework or guidelines (like legislation and codes of practice) to see what your workplace is doing well, not doing so well and where you can make some changes and improvements.
At the end of the audit, a number of outcomes and action points will be identified and used to plan and implement solutions specific to your workforce’s needs. In turn, these solutions should enable your staff, team and organisation to thrive and succeed!
While you can undertake a workplace wellbeing audit internally, SuperFriend are able to support you with this process and provide a clear action plan based on what we learnt in the audit.
To learn more about a workplace wellbeing audit, read our flyer or contact our workplace consulting team today.
