World Mental Health Day
Today is World Mental Health Day and this year’s topic is suicide prevention. Prevention is something we can all help with by being aware and supportive to those around us. A short conversation with someone can really make a difference to how they are feeling.
Being aware of changes in behaviour, such as social withdrawal and excessive quietness/loudness, can highlight how an individual may be feeling and being aware of their coping mechanisms can help you to help them. This may be simple things such as making them a cup of tea, giving them space or simply distracting them with a brief conversation.
At MID Communications we are committed to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our employees. We have monthly 121 conversations between employees and their line manager, which are an opportunity for employees to highlight how they are feeling both at work and personally. From these conversations, line managers can support them appropriately and it helps to build a strong employee-manager relationship so employees can feel comfortable approaching their line manager with any issues, no matter how big or small.
A team of Wellbeing Champions were introduced in February to provide another form of support for our employees with their mental health and wellbeing. Our Wellbeing Champions are there for when employees feel they want to discuss any problems and our champions are there to signpost them to relevant services, should the employees feel that would be beneficial. These conversations will remain private and confidential, unless the champion considers the issues discussed to be particularly concerning, then they must contact the HR department who will support the individual appropriately. Since being in role, the champions have been approached on numerous occasions and feedback from our employees has been extremely positive.
Mental Health and Wellbeing is important to us at MID Communications and we are always looking for ways in which we can further support our employees to try and break the stigma within our workplace.