Developing a Workplace Mental Health & Wellbeing Strategy
To be most effective and have a sustainable impact, Mental Health First Aid training needs to be implemented as part of a strategic, whole organisation approach to wellbeing. Supporting mental health at work means creating an environment that is psychologically safe for everyone.
We will work with you through the following stages, coordinating a review of your workplace currently and identifying priority actions and putting together an overall action plan and strategy document.
Stage 1 – Planning Your Approach
Before you dive in to create initiatives and draft an employee wellbeing policy, stop to consider and plan your approach:
What are your objectives for implementing a strategy?
What do your employees want and need?
How many Mental Health First aiders do you need (if you don’t have already) and who should they be?
Who is responsible for what?
What is currently available and where are the gaps?
How do your competitors compare?
Stage 2 – Getting Management Support
With a mountain of evidence clearly demonstrating the correlation between a wellbeing culture and workforce productivity, it is essential that your business leaders appreciate the value of a health and wellbeing strategy to ensure you have adequate support, designated resource and budget.
Some useful data sources to secure buy-in include:
Sickness records – how is absenteeism affecting your company and what are the key causes?
Employee demographics – are there any specific demographic related wellbeing needs?
Existing initiatives – use data from existing initiatives (e.g. Employee Assistance Programmes) to understand what and how people are using the service for.
Exit surveys or employee engagement surveys – what are the themes or trends related to health and wellbeing?
Stage 3 – Developing your Wellbeing Strategy
Once you have management support you can develop your strategy (with our support):
Outline your vision and objectives.
Determine and agree budget and resource.
Agree responsibilities and clarify expectations of the people involved in the development and ongoing implementation of the strategy.
Determine key metrics – understand how you will measure and show success of the strategy.
Select relevant initiatives – based on your objectives and budget, outline and agree the initiatives that will help you achieve your goal.
Stage 4 – Launching your Strategy
Once the strategy has been signed off, it will need to be communicated to employees. We can advise on suitable tactics which could include:
A launch event
Integrate with national/external campaigns
Feature Mental Health First Aid Ambassadors who can promote the initiatives
Communicate examples of real change
Create and send a regular newsletter
Stage 5 – Review and Refresh
It’s important to regularly review your data and KPIs to check that you are on track.
Reflect with all stakeholders on the performance of the strategy against its goals and take time to consider next steps and how to keep improving year on year.
To discuss how I can support your Mental Health & Wellbeing Strategy development, please contact me.