Truth, Lies & Work

Episode 40 · 24 May 2023 · 1:14:20

How to Build Resilience: The Triple Defence Strategy for Workplace Well-being

How to Build Resilience: The Triple Defence Strategy for Workplace Well-being

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  1. Introduction: strategy vs tactics in workplace well-being

    intro#workplace-wellbeing#strategy#tactics

  2. Meet the guests: Amy McKeown, Andrew Berrie, and Michael Brazier

    intro#podcast#guests#introduction

  3. News roundup: rust out, Elon Musk on remote work, and exercise vs therapy

    news roundup#news#rust-out#remote-work#exercise

  4. The business and legal case for mental health strategy

    panel interview#mental-health#business-case#legal#strategy

  5. Primary-level interventions: job design, flexible working, and purpose

    panel interview#job-design#flexible-working#purpose#interventions

  6. Secondary-level interventions: raising awareness and training line managers

    panel interview#training#line-managers#awareness#interventions

  7. Spotting the signs of poor mental health in hybrid teams

    panel interview#mental-health#hybrid-teams#signs#management

  8. Tertiary-level interventions: crisis support and the 'missing middle'

    panel interview#crisis-support#tertiary-interventions#mental-health

  9. Looking to the future and where to find resources

    outro#future#resources#conclusion

Show notes

How to Build Resilience: The Triple Defence Strategy for Workplace Well-being

Hosts: Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist)

Mental Health Awareness Month is just the start. Real change requires action.

In this special episode, Al and Leanne bring together three expert voices to guide you through a triple defence approach to protecting employee mental health and building resilient workplaces. Featuring Amy McKeown (award-winning workplace health strategist), Andrew Berrie (Head of Workplace Well-being at Mind), and Michael Brazier (Workforce digital mental well-being specialist at Kooth Work), this episode is your blueprint for moving beyond awareness and into measurable, sustainable strategy.

🛡️ The Triple Defence Strategy

This episode breaks down the three levels of intervention that form a comprehensive mental health strategy:

Primary-level interventions are about the organisation — job design, flexible working, work-life balance policies, and creating work with meaning and purpose. This is where you prevent problems before they start.

Secondary-level interventions focus on the individual — raising awareness, empowering line managers to spot early signs, and building the skills to support colleagues before things escalate.

Tertiary-level interventions are the crisis response — supporting people who are already struggling, with access to crisis support, EAPs, and structured return-to-work pathways.

The key insight? Most organisations jump straight to tertiary-level support (crisis counselling, EAPs) without building the primary and secondary foundations. That's like a fire service that only shows up after the building has burned down.

🧠 Key Themes

Strategy vs tactics. Free gym memberships and mindfulness apps are tactics, not strategy. A real strategy connects every intervention to measurable outcomes — and holds leaders accountable for them.

The business case is the human case. Protecting mental health isn't just the right thing to do; it's a legal duty and a productivity driver. The two aren't in tension — they reinforce each other.

Line managers are the frontline. They're not therapists, but they need to spot early signs, signpost to support, and have brave conversations. That requires training, not just a policy document.

The missing middle. Crisis support covers about 2-5% of people. But what about the massive number in the middle — struggling but not in crisis? That's where early intervention creates the biggest competitive advantage.

💬 Quotes to Remember

"Most of what we see in terms of well-being is not strategy, it's tactics."

"You might not care about mental health. You might not care about people. But you have to care about the law."

"It's the same as anything else you want buy-in for — go with the numbers."

🔗 Resources and Links

Connect with Amy McKeown:

Connect with Andrew Berrie:

Connect with Michael Brazier:

More from this episode:

Listen back for more on:

Connect With Us

Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

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Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform. Every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Amy McEwanNice.
Al ElliottCheck out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
AndrewRight.
Amy McEwanMost of what we see in terms of wellbeing is not strategy, it's tactics. And actually, so it's about putting some strategic thought. You only know if something's had impact or working if you had a goal in the first place and you're measuring whether you've achieved it or not.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to the Truth, Lies and Workplace Culture podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. What is it? The audio destination for business professionals. Uh, we are here to help you simplify the science of people and create amazing workplace cultures. My name is Leanne. I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd welcome.
Al ElliottHello, hello, hello. Yes, so it's Mental Health Week. Is it Mental Health Week or Month?
Leanne ElliottWell, it's both. It's Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK and Mental Health Awareness Month in the US.
Al ElliottWhen we were at the Watercolour— yes, we mentioned the Watercolour again— when we were at the Watercolour event, um, a couple of weeks ago, we spoke to a lot of really cool people who are around mental health, because the whole event is kind of around wellbeing and mental health, isn't it?
Leanne ElliottYeah, it really is. It really is. So we wanted to bring you some of those conversations, as we promised, um, and also contribute to the conversation around mental health awareness. happening in the UK and in the US at the moment. If you're not sure what Mental Health Awareness Week or Month is, it is an annual event, um, and they're united by really a focus on, on helping people achieve good mental health. So it's a good time for us to have the conversation, tackle the stigma, and really find out how we can create a society and workplaces that prevent mental health problems from developing. You've probably seen loads in your feed this month about various wellbeing interventions, and we're here to guide you through the various tiers of wellbeing support, and perhaps explore the least talked about interventions that supports employee mental health, and that is, of course, workplace culture. So to help us do that, we are joined by 3 incredible guests.
Al ElliottNow, before we meet our guests, just take a moment. We take 90 seconds to tell you about another podcast on the network that we're really enjoying right now. Okay, so these 3 guests. Our first guest is Amy McCowan, one of my favourite people we met at the Water Cooler.
Leanne ElliottYou're getting a bit flirty with Amy.
Al ElliottI was, I was a little bit. I did find myself, I think, I'm blaming her.
Leanne ElliottShe was getting flirty with you.
MichaelYeah.
Al ElliottShe's just, she's just so much fun and just doesn't take herself too seriously, even though she should, because she's pretty incredible. So she's an award-winning workplace health, mental health, and wellbeing strategist and consultant. She coaches organisations of all sizes, and she puts into place evidence-based and measurable and sustainable strategies which are as innovative as they are effective. She's also non-executive director of mental health First Aid England. So let's go meet Amy.
Amy McEwanSo my name is Amy McEwan. I'm famous for wearing bright colours and jumping up and down. But seriously, I have been in health, mental health, and wellbeing for 20 years. I am a dinosaur, as you can tell. I have— I spent my 20s running a mental health tech startup at completely the wrong time, given that Facebook didn't exist and no one was talking about mental health. But I managed to put it up and running in public sector organisations. I ended up at Ernst Young to do something in digital health, which is what my master's is in, but then set up and ran their mental health network and then wrote and implemented their UK health and mental health strategy. Uh, and since I had children, I am now an independent consultant. Um, clients have ranged from FTSE 100 retailers, global strategies. I wrote the EU Parliament's mental health strategy. But I think what will be interesting to your listeners hopefully is a lot of my clients are SMEs. So I've got an organization of 50 people, 20 people, 60 people where I work with them helping to put in place health and mental health that is not a load of waffly wellbeing fluff and that will actually make a difference.
Leanne ElliottVery excited to have Amy on the podcast. She has such incredible insights. Our next guest is Andrew Berry. Andrew is Head of Workplace Wellbeing at Mind, a charity that for more 70 years has been committed to making sure that everyone experiencing a mental health problem is treated with the respect they deserve and of course has access to the support they need. Andrew oversees a department of 30 that is committed to supporting employers create mentally healthy workplaces through changes in their policy, practice, and culture. Let's hear more from Andrew and the work he does at Mind.
AndrewMind is a mental health charity. It operates in both England and Wales, uh, and for the last 75 years we've been fighting for mental health In the workplace. That's what I do in the Workplace Wellbeing Team, but also across all kind of settings in society for everyone in society. And our main mission is to really ensure that everybody gets support and respect regardless of who they are and what that setting is, whether or not that is trying to hold government to account and to do better and looking at policies that can look to improve life for people with poor mental health. So, for example, around statutory sick pay or looking at benefits, for example, or if that's in the delivery of services.
Al ElliottAnd finally, we're thrilled to welcome Michael Brazier to the podcast. Michael is a workforce digital mental wellbeing specialist at Kooth Work. Now, Kooth Work's digital products are designed to help wellbeing leaders to understand and support and improve the mental health of their workforce. It's available to 15.9 million people across the UK. Very impressive. So let's go hear more about Kooth Work and their preventative approach.
MichaelEverybody like myself, my colleagues at Kooth Work, and the wellbeing leaders we work with, somehow we need to try and put in some early interventions in there. Because we can all try and provide fixes at the end. You know, there's great support through EAPs and great resources out there to help people who are actually going through a mental health crisis and that kind of cure side. But I think where we need to really focus our energy now is on Prevention and early intervention.
Al ElliottSo before we dive into mental health awareness and meet all our amazing guests, let's start off with our regular feature. It's the news roundup.
Leanne ElliottCue the jingle.
Al ElliottOkay, so what have you got, Leah?
Leanne ElliottI've got a new word.
Al ElliottLovely. New word alert.
Leanne ElliottRust out.
Al ElliottI feel like I always have to keep saying it back to you. Rust out. Is it like peace out? You go rust out and drop like an iron bar and walk out?
Leanne ElliottThere's not much peace associated with rust out, that's for sure. Um, so yeah, rust out, a new word that is being talked in the— very much in the realm of employee mental health. Rust out has some of the symptoms of burnout, such as a loss of interest or personal meaning in the job, which of course impacts engagement, performance, and mental health. But rust out is the opposite of burnout. So it's when work is monotonous and employees feel underutilized or understimulated in their positions. So in April of this year, a survey of over 1,000 US knowledge workers, uh, oh, by the company— I do like this— the company that ran the series called MMHMM.
Al ElliottI know, I like it.
Leanne ElliottMMHMM. You have to say it with that tone, I think. But anyway, they did a survey of 1,000 knowledge workers in the US and found that 67% said they had experienced rust out, um, all or some of the time in the past year, and 72% said they have left or would leave a job from feeling rust out.
Al ElliottCan I just stop? Because I still don't know what it means. Give me an example of what, what rust out— how I'd feel.
Leanne ElliottDo you know when like burnout is like you've got— it can be very stressed, overstimulated. So burnout is from like sustained stress for long periods of time. Whereas rust out is just sustained dissatisfaction with your job. Basically, you're just not interested in it anymore. It's not stimulating, it's not exciting you anymore.
Al ElliottAh, so it's kind of like the opposite end. So if I was doing a really stressful job, if I was a brain surgeon, then I could get burnout. If I was just typing up all the results of the brain surgeon's surgery and it was just really boring, monotonous, I might get rust out.
Leanne ElliottExactly.
Al ElliottGot it. Sorry, carry on.
Leanne ElliottNo, quite right, to clarify. So yeah, that is rust-out. That is what the survey found. A lot of people, what, more than 2/3 of people, are experiencing at the moment, would leave their job because of it. And what's interesting, there is no link between remote or in-office work. It was much, much the same in terms of people experiencing rust-out. But younger workers, as with burnout interestingly, younger workers are particularly sensitive to feeling underutilised or understimulated, and in fact, 80% would leave or have left a job because of it.
Al ElliottInteresting. So what else we got, Leah?
Leanne ElliottWell, Elon Musk is losing his shit again. So Elon Musk has called working from home morally wrong and referred to workers in Silicon Valley's technology industry as laptop classes living in la-la land.
Al ElliottWow.
Leanne ElliottSo his point was that the remote working was unfair on those people that had to commute because of their jobs, such like builders or mechanics or delivery drivers. And he basically said that remote work is, and this is a quote, the fake Marie Antoinette quote, let them eat cake. You're going to work from home and make everyone who made your car come to the factory. Does that seem morally right? That's messed up. Yeah, I think if you unpack this a little bit, it's like Elon feeling morally outraged by inequity in the workplace doesn't seem to be kind of on brand for Elon, but encouraging people to still buy the cars to commute to work feels maybe more of a motivation. Now, if I'm being skeptical, Al?
Al ElliottWell, if we fast forward or reverse about, about 110 years, then I— if I've remembered it right, then, uh, Henry Ford basically invented the 5-day work week because he wanted people to go out and enjoy the weekends so they could buy his cars. And so it sounds like the same thing. He's going, Elon's saying, well, why don't we just go back to commuting to work? Oh, and by the way, I have a few cars that I can sell you in order to commute. So yes, it's probably, um, it's probably a very— it's a very strange thing for him to say, but he is a very strange, very strange man.
Leanne ElliottIt is strange. He argues it's a productivity issue and a moral issue, uh, that people should, quote, get off their goddamn moral high horse with this bullshit because they're asking everyone else to not work from home while they do. It's wrong. He's got a point in that we are thinking, we do need to think about how we can create flexibility for people who do have to work in a specific place or in a specific service. Um, so he's right, that is a consideration. There are— there is work being done to build in that flexibility. Um, so yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure that Elon is really the man of the people he's trying to be here, but yes, there you go.
Al ElliottOkay, well, thank you, Elon. What else we got, Leah?
Leanne ElliottSo finally, I came across some research this week that I thought was quite interesting and quite topical for our episode. So a research team wrote in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, uh, that they undertook a meta-review looking at evidence from existing reviews of studies into the effectiveness of exercise in treating symptoms of depression and anxiety. Interestingly, they did find that exercise can reduce symptoms to a similar extent as medication or therapy, a find which the researchers quite rightly argue could suggest that exercise is a mainstay approach for treating these types of conditions. Interesting.
Al ElliottI heard, um, I heard that maybe it was about the 1800s, there was a story about a— at the time, I suppose, to be psychologist, psychiatrist— and, uh, and when you went to visit him back then, he would say, okay, what I want you to do is when you come back, or when you, when you leave, just count how chimney pots there are when you're walking home, on your way home. And the whole point of that was that it got people to look up and they felt better when they left his office. Then he did other things like he'd say, okay, I want you to go out and your, your only task this week is to go and find a horse, find some large water, and something else. Again, he wasn't— it wasn't going to find these things that make them happy. It was the fact they're out and exercising and doing stuff. So that's really cool.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it is interesting. Exercise may be as effective as therapy or medication. But we should remember, of course, and the researchers did make a point of this, we need to bring patients into the conversation as to what type of treatment is best for them. And this is likely to be a better approach than simply replacing medication or therapy with a prescription for yoga.
Al ElliottOkay, so let's get back into our episode. So as we know, May in the US is Mental Health Month. This year's theme is around Look Around, Look Within, which is their kind of like tagline, and it's reminding us that many factors in the workplace come into play when it comes to mental health conditions. Now, the problem is that a lot of sort of mental health or wellbeing interventions come in this sort of the idea of the— I think it's Employer Assistance Program. What's what? Yeah. And so you'll have things like mindfulness at lunch or counseling or free gym memberships. But this is again like the online version of just putting a pool table in the break room. It's great, but there's so much more that leaders can do to build environments in which employees feel are like positive mental health, and they actually thrive. And that's what we're talking about today.
Leanne ElliottYes, and one of the core aims of mental health awareness is to explore how we can create a society that prevents mental health problems from developing and protect our wellbeing. We spend roughly a third of our life at work. In fact, the average— I was looking— the average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime.
AndrewWow.
Leanne ElliottIt's a lot of hours. So as business leaders, as owners, we really do have a fundamental role to play in protecting mental well-being. And when it comes to protecting mental well-being, there are 3 lines of defense, Al, just like in risk management. You're, you're familiar with the risk management framework, right?
Al ElliottSure.
Leanne ElliottSo if you're not, if you shouldn't be familiar, uh, with this, although it is very, very prevalent, particularly in corporate, but I'm sure there'll be many small businesses that will, will know this framework as well. So when it comes to risk, the first line of defense is formed by managers and staff who are responsible for identifying and managing risk, and then collectively should have the necessary knowledge, skills, information, and authority to control the risk. So this is the first line of defence, the people on the ground. The second line of defence are functions that oversee or specialise in compliance or the management of risk. So they're the people that provide the policies, the frameworks, the tools, and the techniques. So that might be in the, you know, in this analogy, like your HR department.
AndrewYeah.
Leanne ElliottThe third line of defence is functions that provide independent assurance. Hello, expert providers and auditors.
Al ElliottJust explain 3. Give me an example of what 3 might be.
Leanne ElliottSo 3 is people like us that would go into an organisation, go, hello, hi, um, run a wellbeing audit to see how people are doing, and then suggest recommendations to enforce the first line of defence, so the people on, on the ground, like your line managers, how they support their employees with mental health, Or the second line of defense, the people in HR that are creating the policies and the frameworks and the tools.
Al ElliottThat kind of makes sense to me. And so from what I've learned from you, Lianne, kind of, you're saying that the approach to wellbeing in the workplace should be kind of the same thing. So in this episode, we'll be sharing with you how you can build these 3 lines of defense to protect their employee mental health. Remember, as we've heard before from our experts, there is no silver bullet. There very rarely is for anything. An effective wellbeing strategy will look different From, like, the smaller organization with 12 people to IBM with 250,000 people. And of course, it's also dependent on, like, the history, the goals, the objectives, all that kind of stuff. But we can look at the categories of interventions that you can choose from to meet the needs of your people. So shall we start at the beginning? My question I always ask you on all of this is, why should we even bother?
Leanne ElliottScrew it, it'll be fine. What's the worst that could happen? Well, you might not care about mental health. You might not care about the mental health in of employees. You might be that sceptic that thinks, oh, everyone's got a mental health problem just because we talk about it more. Or you might think that you care an appropriate amount in terms of the salary and benefits that you offer. I would like to hand this question, if I could, Al, over to Andrew, who is our Head of Workplace Wellbeing at Mind. He explained to me a very clear business case, and actually a very clear legal case, for investing more and doing better when it comes to employee mental health. Here's Andrew.
AndrewWe've seen significant improvement over the last 5 years or so in terms of organizational adoption of mental health and wellbeing as a key agenda item. To some extent, that came from the Thriving at Work Review, which was published in 2017. It was commissioned by Theresa May many governments ago and written by Paul Farmer and Lord Dennis Stevenson, Paul Farmer being Mind's former CEO. But it really set out a series of recommendations for government and a series of ways in which any organisation of any size could really look to make improvement. But it also set out the economic case, and it was really one of the kind of foremost, largest actual evidence base that set out a real business cost to employers of not investing in mental health and wellbeing, which is currently $53 to $56 billion. For anybody listening, It's not an insignificant cost, and that's through absenteeism, staff turnover, presenteeism, loss of productivity. But that document really did have a change for how employers look to adopt good practice. What I will say is that there's significant recommendations that have not been enacted by government. Some element of that is the extent to which there have been changes in government since that report was published. And whilst we have seen increased adoption, the conversations that we often have now with government and with employers is that we see an increasing number of employers looking to raise the ceiling that want to do better and better and better. But there are still a large number of employers across the country, and it's not specific to any size or sector, but that are doing the bare minimum. And I think the conversation that we're often having with government at the moment is how do we look to raise the floor? Because there is already this momentum. There is a number of people that recognise the cost of poor mental health that want to make those improvements. But there is a subset of those organisations who do not want to do anything, do not recognise it as their responsibility, think it is an individual responsibility. And we do need to find a way, whether it's through regulation or enforcement or anything else, At looking to improve the experience for those employees. And some of that is enforcing what is already in place. So many people do not realise that there is already a statutory requirement to do a stress risk assessment. That is a requirement of HSE. The vast majority of organisations in the UK would not realise that and do not have that in place. But it's not something that's particularly enforced.
Leanne ElliottMichael agrees that investing in positive physical and mental health is good for everybody. and offers some insights from Cothworks research.
MichaelIt's beneficial to everybody to support positive mental health and improve mental health. Um, you can't operate a workforce if people are away sick, absent. Um, there's a company here called GoodShape who we know well, um, and they've got some really intriguing data. They track reasons for absence, and mental health is Right up there. And actually, they'll tell you, if you look more into detail about why people are off sick, you know, with an ailment, you know, they don't have a stomach bug. They're dealing with something that is really personal to them, and it's affecting their ability to work. So if you want to maintain, you know, from a purely financial perspective, productivity of your organisation, Or a more humanistic approach, which we're all humans and we all have emotions, and many leaders are very in tune with this. If you just want to see the humans that work in your business happy, it makes sense in so many different ways.
Al ElliottOf course. I think we've all done it. If we just don't feel like going into work at some point, you ring up and go, oh, I'm sorry, I've got a stomachache, or something like that. It's not that, it's something a little bit more deeper than that, isn't it, sometimes?
Leanne ElliottYeah, it often, it often is. And I think what Andrew said there was really interesting as well. It is a legal requirement for organisations to conduct a stress risk assessment. That's the HSE management standards that are in place. And I'm not sure I've ever come across an organisation, particularly a small business, that actually has that in place already.
Al ElliottSo that's the business case for putting it together. So let's go into the first line of defence. defence, this primary level. Can you explain to me, Leah, what it all means?
Amy McEwanYes.
Leanne ElliottSo the various lines of defence, to explain that, we'll be taking you through the psychological wellbeing intervention framework. And that was presented by Sheena Johnson, fun fact, my former lecturer at Manchester Business School, along with Ivan Robertson and the infamous Kerry Cooper in their book Wellbeing, Productivity and Happiness at Work. It is a real bible for any people and culture practitioner, and as always, I will leave a link in the show notes. So the psychological wellbeing intervention framework talks about primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of intervention. And of course, a good wellbeing strategy is going to include all 3. So the first line of defence is the primary level intervention. This is aimed at enhancing the work situation, so to improve the impact of the work environment on individuals. That can include things like job redesign, culture change, flexible working.
AndrewMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottWork-life balance policies. So basically all the organisational-level interventions. Now, this is challenging for organisations because typically it does mean making fundamental changes to how your employees work, how your business operates, and there may be resistance from within the organisation because it might mean that people need to take on different priorities or different responsibilities. But it's like that old saying goes, isn't it? Anything worth having doesn't come easy. And in fact, if it's taken seriously, with a commitment as always from the senior leadership team, primary level interventions have the most impact. But the question of course is always, where do you start? How do you know if your strategy will have impact? We asked our guest Amy, who as you heard earlier wrote and implemented the wellbeing strategy for the EU Parliament.
Amy McEwanWell, I guess, I mean, it's not really about knowing whether you're getting it wrong. I guess the question is, is what you're doing having any impact? Right? So I mean, because I am a dinosaur, I spent the first decade— no one was talking about mental health. Like, it was a challenge to get organizations to talk about stress, you know, let alone anxiety and depression, right? So, but now we've gone to like, you can't open your, um, you can't open a newspaper without somebody talking about mental health, usually Prince Harry. But, you know, any celebrity will do. People, you know, it's kind of— it's the thing. But we've— and well-being, like, we are sat at a well-being exhibition. In a conference. This would not have happened 10 years ago. The trouble is, is that everyone's plowed into it with very well intentions and good, but I don't think there's a lot of thought about what you're trying to do as an organization. When I work with people, they're either starting out on a rabbit in headlights, because there's so much going on, they don't know what to do, or they've done some stuff, but it's kind of like throwing paint at a wall, like, we'll just put stuff in and hope it sticks. So you don't really know whether you're doing it wrong, I guess the question to ask is, what are you trying to achieve, and what impact has it had? The first question I ask anybody I'm working with is, what are we talking about here? Health, mental health, wellbeing? What does that mean for you and your organization? And actually, the word strategy, right? Strategy in itself means having a goal, an actionable goal that you can then work towards. Most of what we see in terms of wellbeing is not strategy, it's tactics. And actually, so it's about putting some strategic thought— you only know if something's had impact or working if you had a goal in the first place, and you're measuring whether you've achieved it or not.
Al ElliottI like this. It's not strategy, it's tactics. And this is what Liane always says, I think, when she says sticking a pool table in the break room is a tactic, not a strategy. So she also explained that it's not just enough just to have this strategy, but you need to kind of live by it. You need to role model the desired behaviors and Oh, it's the thing that frustrates me the most.
Amy McEwanOr you've put in a really good strategy, but then you're still measuring people on their targets, or if you miss your targets, you know, or you've got senior leaders who think that they've created a wellbeing or mental health strategy for everybody else in the organization other than themselves, because obviously as a senior leader you don't have mental health or wellbeing. And so actually the behaviors that you're role modeling are completely different to what you're rewarding everybody else to do. A big part of what we talk about is about how you make it really clear what you're doing and how, and how that fits together. But you also then wrap that into performance management, and you measure people based on the behaviours you're trying to drive in your wellbeing strategy. Otherwise, you are just wasting your time.
Leanne ElliottAndrew also believes that role modelling behaviours is essential in driving business and culture change, including policies relating to flexible working and work-life balance.
AndrewSo the first thing that any manager or any senior leader can do to try and foster that culture of openness is to role model good behavior. So again, if your employees are working long hours and they don't feel that they're able to say, I'm struggling, or I need to have some work-life balance, or I need to set some boundaries, you being really clear about what your own boundaries are, leaving work at a good hour, not sending emails at ridiculous o'clock, is going to set that environment in which it's made clear that there is a priority on mental health and well-being as a starting point. Equally, and we did see this a lot during the pandemic, managers and senior leaders feeling that they're able to share their own experience of poor mental health or where they've struggled, or just tips and techniques that they use themselves in supporting their own mental health and well-being, is something that again kind of opens up the conversation. So you can say, you know, and again, it doesn't need to be speaking about a mental health problem specifically. But it can be me talking about how— and again, this appears in our Wellness Action Plan guidance, and I've spoken on many webinars at this point— but again, how every morning, during the pandemic and even now, kind of hybrid working, I'll go for a fake commute. So I'll leave the flat, I'll walk around the block for like 15, 20 minutes, I'll grab a takeaway coffee, I'll come back to the flat, and it puts me in the mindset that I've now come into work and that I've not just come back to my bedroom and rolled out of bed, uh, and gone to a desk. And that is a really helpful boundary for me between my home life and my work life.
Leanne ElliottSo, primary-level interventions are things like job design, flexible working, work-life balance policies. It's policies, but it's not enough to have the policy in place. As a leader, you need to live it, you need to role model those behaviours. I remember talking to a leader, I think it was actually at the WaterCool as well, who said that, I always leave work at 5 o'clock. I'll sometimes need to do an hour or so at home, but the important thing is my employees see me get up and walk out the door at 5 o'clock, because then they know they can too. And again, sharing your, your own experiences. I've heard, you know, some organisations say, oh, we've got a great EAP programme, but nobody accesses it. Well, maybe you access it and talk about your experience you've had. And I think this is where it's really bringing these primary-level interventions to life that probably, and probably for legal reasons, the majority of organisations have.
AndrewMm-hmm.
Leanne Elliottbut are they being brought to life? Are they being lived within the organisation? Another intervention in the primary level is culture change, and it's actually one of the most prevalent primary interventions, and this is what we specialise in at Oblong. Culture can feel really intangible, and leaders often don't know again where to start. So we developed our RX7 model, which is really just to distil culture into 7 foundations that are predictive of positive outcomes, including employee wellbeing, productivity, and business performance. We're currently working with private clients using the RX7 to help with culture change. We are releasing it publicly very soon, so keep an eye on our website, or if you can't wait, drop us an email. I won't dive too much into it now, but in terms of the 7 foundations, they are reason, role, recognition, resources, relationships, resilience, and remote. And I'd like to take a moment just to focus on that first foundation of culture. Reason. So reason is about providing inspiring leadership, a clear vision, and work with meaning and purpose. The aim is to help our employees feel fulfilled, to have purpose. There are so many studies that have shown that in wellbeing terms, having purpose in life is critical. Without purpose, we're unlikely to experience the highest levels of wellbeing. And purpose is of course subjective, and it's different for each of us, but it is typically derived from work relationships, and health. We asked our guests what gives them purpose and the energy to continue this fight to build mental health awareness and workplace cultures in which people thrive. Here's Amy.
Amy McEwanDo you know, I question this frequently because my life would have been so much easier in my early 20s if I'd have just gone into a normal career. Because I say normal, I have been bashing my head against being a pioneer for— not deliberately— for so many years. I mean, when I went into this, Tech didn't exist. Mental health didn't exist. Workplace didn't exist. And actually, I think I would have made a lot more money and had a lot more kind of less angst in my life had I just chosen a career path that already existed and that was stable, especially if you throw on the nuances of being a passionate woman, because that holds against you in society. And motherhood is a whole other car crash. The honest answer is, I don't know. I grew up in a family of health and mental health. My father was a psychiatrist. I love helping people in a not-naff way. You know, I think I was born with a skill set of being able to talk and being able to have an active brain and be able to translate things and see the bigger picture, but also have the skills to be in the smaller. It's just always— it's just felt innate. I think some people are born on the planet knowing they want to be singers, right?
MichaelYeah.
Amy McEwanYou know, I kind of fell into health and mental health and seeing systemic change. And when I make decisions about how I spend my time, I always try to think about what actual impact that's having on other people. I would have made so much more money, and I think life would have been so much easier if I'd have just gone into the city at the age of 20. But you just sometimes, you just realize you're not wired that way, and I'm just not wired that way. It's always been around health, mental health, and women's rights. You know, those are things that— I don't know when I start talking about— just sort of something comes up, you know. I can't— I don't know, it's like some people know they're going to be ballet dancers at the age of 5. Uh, I kind of wish sometimes that it had been something else because it would have been a lot easier and a lot more straightforward than kind of— but, you know, I think there's a lot of legacy and impact that I will leave, hopefully.
Leanne ElliottWe also asked Andrew, who shared his personal journey with Mind.
AndrewSo I've been at Mind for 5 years now, um, in a variety of different roles. to bring myself to the head of workplace wellbeing at Mind, and all in the workplace wellbeing department. But previous to that, I worked at a university, and I was putting together our kind of student experience strategy. And in so doing, we were part of— we were one of, I think it was 12 universities and students' unions that was doing a survey on student wellbeing. And that had some really stark results for the mental health and wellbeing of students. Which included the number of students just at our institution that had had suicidal ideation. That was really upsetting, frankly, for the number of students that were kind of within our care and that we were looking to support on campus that were having these feelings and potentially not accessing support. And again, it really posed the question to me around what more, what more could I be doing beyond just what I was doing at the institution? At the institution, we really looked at how we reframed a lot of our services through a wellbeing lens. So our sports clubs and societies, we offered for free to students, and that was very much with a wellbeing intention. And how students could access funding was essentially justifying how it supported student wellbeing moving forwards. So we did kind of reframe a lot of what we were doing. But the question to me was really, this is a larger problem in society. It's not a problem that's going away. And actually, there needs to be a cultural change in society about how we think and talk about mental health. That is going to really facilitate this longer-term benefit. And for that reason, I then started joining the Time to Change team. Time to Change being an anti-stigma campaign that ran through 2020 from about 2010. And again, that was all about breaking down stigma, opening up conversations, increasing mental health literacy. And the program's kind of legacy really is the increase in mental health literacy and over that period, a significant reduction in stigma. So that's really what brought me to mind and got me passionate about the subject.
Leanne ElliottSo as a leader, maybe take some time this week to reflect on your reason, your purpose, and also the reason you're giving to people so they want to come and work for you. They want to get out of bed in the morning. They want to contribute to mission delivery. And to paraphrase the greatest philosopher of our time, Sir RuPaul Charles, if you can't inspire yourself, how the hell are you going to inspire anyone else?
Al ElliottSo if you're listening to this podcast, it's highly unlikely that you're completely closed off to the idea that wellbeing is good for business. You're going to be at least open-minded and more likely to be kind of a believer in the people and culture cause. But what happens if you don't have the seniority or the authority to put this kind of strategy in place? How, as people and culture or HR practitioners, are we going to secure the buy-in of the board and the senior members? Amy's advice is to arm yourself with the numbers. That's what they like.
Amy McEwanSo, I'm a great believer in, I've got a finite amount of energy and time on this planet, so let's use it on things that are actually going to have impact. But, actually, what I've found with those sorts of people is sometimes they can be your biggest champions, right? There are some that you're just never going to get there, so you can usually figure that out quite quickly. What I end up doing is creating the jigsaw and the structure around other things. A big part of what I have always done in what whatever role I've done is being able to speak different languages. So when I ran my mental health tech startup, I was— my father was a psychiatrist. It was taking his knowledge, right? That's how I got into this world. He specialized in stress, anxiety, depression in the, in like the '80s. So taking clinical language and tech language and business language and translating them into something that works. So that's where I think my skill set is, is being able to do that. So with those sorts of people, There's some that you're never gonna get on board. There are actually a lot of people that if you have the right conversation totally get it 'cause it's happened to them. Their wife's an alcoholic. Their daughter's had bulimia. You know, there's a lot of that. But also, when you've created your strategy and your aim and what you're trying to do, right, which is the bit that most people seem to forget, it's then about creating the narrative around that, right? And then selling that narrative. Most of health, mental health, and wellbeing is stakeholder management. So having a narrative which is, this is the right thing to do for productivity, for profitability, gets people on board. But also numbers, right? So when I work with organizations, one of the first things we look at is how much health and mental health is already costing them through absence, through people who are sick. I try to stick to things you can actually measure, not sort of waffly productivity type things, although people would argue you can measure that, but that's a whole other debate. When you look at what you're already spending, and then you say, well, this is not a strategic spend, we're an organization that actually prides itself on numbers. If we reallocate that strategic spend, rather than absence, we're putting it into decent health providers, it'll make us more profitable and more productive. And you quantify that, which you can. That gets some of the dinosaurs that aren't me, but the white male ones you're talking about, on board. So it's about having a number of different narratives up your sleeve, figuring out who you're talking to, and then turning it. And sometimes it can be— I went in to deal with a load of audit partners at Ernst Young. Now, audit partners, if you can imagine, they are the bean counters of the bean counters, right? So, very, very, you know, exactly as you've described, analytical people. And I went in with my slide pack, you know, thinking— because it's always hard when you're a sort of woman in your early— I was thinking I was late 20s, early 30s, trying to get on board those sorts of people. And they surprised me because, you know, I had my slides on numbers, and all they wanted to talk about was this being the right thing to do. But I've gone into other audiences that I thought would be soft and cuddly, and spent an hour justifying the numbers on slide 1. So it's just about being armed with knowing what you're doing, having the numbers, measuring it, being really clear what your strategic aims are and how you're going to measure it. But then figuring out different ways of selling it based on who you're dealing with.
Al ElliottIt's like anything you want to get buy-in on, just go with the numbers. Take yourself— take a PDF, like, Remember we said from, was it last week where we were talking about, or maybe the week before, we were saying that the way that Amazon does anything is they don't put together a project proposal, they put together a report of how it's going to look when it's finished. And then that's basically their objectives, their aims, their targets, everything. So just do that and go and get buying. It's the same as anything else.
Leanne ElliottYep. Some really great advice from, from Amy there. And hopefully—
Al ElliottAnd Al.
Leanne ElliottAnd Al, sorry. Yes. Some great advice from Amy. And Al there on how you can secure the buy-in from your board and leadership team. Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)And 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking.
Al ElliottAnd you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Amy McEwanIt is.
Leanne ElliottIt's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioral science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)It can.
Leanne ElliottAnd are we all just status-seeking monkeys?
MichaelI am.
Al ElliottGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this, so come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Keep that in.
Al ElliottLeah, can you just talk us through the secondary level?
Leanne ElliottSo basically, where primary-level interventions were about the organisation, secondary level is about the individual. So these types of interventions often help organisations to make significant improvements without all the upheaval of change that is needed for primary interventions, and they also have a more lasting preventative impact than tertiary interventions, which we'll talk about a bit more later.
Al ElliottThe first of these 3 steps is just really raising the awareness of it. I mean, this is the core of secondary level interventions because you want to make sure that a certain topic or issue is more visible within the community or the business or Um, you know, the group in which you're trying to get this implemented in. The goal is to make people understand the importance of a certain issue and then find the support to address it. Now, Mind, an incredible organization— if you're not from the UK, Mind is massive. It's like at the forefront of some of this stuff. It's been raising awareness for mental health for 70 years. Here's Andrew to explain a bit more.
AndrewOne of the services that most people will use at Mind is our Infoline. Uh, again, the Mind website has an A to Z, an introduction to common mental health problems, symptoms, treatments, where to go for support, our Side by Side online community, which is kind of peer-to-peer. There's a whole host of services, but we are a federated charity as well. So we have about 130 independent local Minds across the country. And again, many people will be familiar with their own local Mind, and they provide kind of local community services to really speak to the specific needs of some of our towns and some of our cities across the UK.
Al ElliottBut it's not just the services that Mind offers that's raising awareness. Their research has had huge impact at the highest of levels. We asked Andrew about the latest results from Mind's flagship Wellbeing Index.
AndrewAbsolutely. So again, just to give a bit of background to anyone who isn't aware of what our index is, our Workplace Wellbeing Index is our benchmark of best practice across the UK. It's been operating now for 7 years. We've had 384 different organizations participate. We've got a ridiculous number of data points, something along the lines of 45 million data points through individual questions. And each year we have about 50,000 employees answer various questions about mental health in the workplace. So every year following that kind of cycle of surveying and benchmarking best practice, we produce our Index Insights. And that really says year on year, what are the trends that we're seeing So the key statistic that I've been talking about today has been the fact that only 52% of employees who completed the Workplace Wellbeing Index would say that they feel supported by their organization. Now, that is a 6% decrease on last year. To some extent, we think that is related to a bit of wellbeing fatigue. And we also know that those employees have also said that they've seen a reduction in the amount of promotion from their organizations around employee mental health, around wellbeing. signposting to support services. So there's been an 11% reduction in the number of employees who have also said that they've seen that level of promotion. But that does mean that there's 48% of employees who do not currently feel supported in their business. So we know that's a significant number of employees.
Leanne ElliottThis is quite a sad-making statistic, isn't it? Half of employees in the UK don't feel supported by their organisation. Oh, it really just feels to me that organisations are maybe neglecting these secondary-level interventions that are better supporting people with either, you know, the stresses they have, the demands of their role, stress management, positive health promotion, better recruitment, and of course, as always, better management. As we'll hear from Andrew, line management is so important, and the data, the latest data, is backing this up.
AndrewBut another kind of important statistic that's come out of this year specifically has been looking at the significant impact that line managers play that level of support. So thinking about employees who say that they have supportive line managers, they're twice as likely to report good mental health outcomes compared to those that say that they don't have supportive line managers. And similarly, when looking at employees who say that they have effective working relationships with their line manager, they're 3 times more likely to report that they are happy at work than those that don't. So we know that line managers have a really important part to play in satisfaction at work, how productive they are at work, and their mental health outcomes at work. So that's been a lot of the narrative that we've really been talking about today, about how do we take those findings and recognize the importance of line management and translate that into some practical action. And if you're going to be accessing support, you're most likely to be accessing that support through your line manager. If you're having conversations about workplace or reasonable adjustments, that's most likely going to be through your line manager. And again, we We know that some of the challenges people have when they do have poor mental health is around competing tasks, competing challenges, knowing what to prioritise. And again, that workload prioritisation, a lot of that comes directly from a line manager.
Leanne ElliottThis is a really important aspect of secondary-level interventions, and the second that we want to highlight after raising awareness— training leaders. I feel like a broken record, so I'm going to hand it over to Amy as to why training leaders I mentor people across the industry.
Amy McEwanI guess the main difference with that is I'm working with individuals who are in those sorts of roles as opposed to writing strategies. And they range from global wellbeing leads, but a lot of people are in SMEs or even running their own wellbeing businesses. And then what I realized while I was doing this mentoring work is that loads of people who are responsible for health, mental health, and wellbeing, to be blunt, are really passionate about it and have pivoted in from different like their D&I or their learning and development or their health and safety or their HR, and they've taken the health, mental health, wellbeing role. You know, sometimes in an SME it's a board member or a director of ops, but they don't really know what they're doing in terms of the wider health and mental health. So you end up with kind of health, safety, and wellbeing or diversity and inclusion with a bit of like mental health tacked on. So what I started to do is put together a practical training course. which was how to do health and mental health and wellbeing in a comprehensive way that works, and just run my first round. But as you said, like, quite a few people who came— I had some global wellbeing leads and people from big companies, but I also had a lot of people from SMEs. I had someone from a school. And what was great was, because you're running a course, everyone's sharing ideas, and you can transpose something that works very well in an SME to a large company, but also be creative about different environments and industries.
Al ElliottSo obviously, I think most of our guests believe that training line managers is crucial, but Andrew believes that to create this kind of business change, we need to level up the mental health literacy— what a phrase— of our leaders. Here's Andrew.
AndrewNow, over the last decade, mental health literacy has certainly improved, particularly in workplace settings. But again, there is still a number of people in society who do not understand that we all have mental health just as we have physical health. They think of mental health problems on kind of a linear spectrum. So you're either mentally well or mentally unwell versus all of us having mental health, it being something that we all possess. But, you know, some of us will have enduring mental health problems and some of us will not, but all of us have wellbeing. And it's perfectly natural for that to fluctuate day to day or after any kind of event. I think, again, particularly amongst SMEs, a lot of managers just do not feel that they have the time to commit to having conversations about mental health or wellbeing, a large number of them might not feel that it's their responsibility. They might feel it's the responsibility of either the individual to kind of manage their own mental health and manage their own resilience, which would not be mine's position, or that it's the responsibility of HR or somebody that isn't them. And again, to them, we would say, you know, mental health and wellbeing and having that support available for your line reports is everyone's business. And it isn't just a moral thing to do, it's good business. Again, that's how you have happy, productive employees that deliver great results. And having a conversation with your line report about how they best perform at work is only to the benefit of your team and your outputs. But again, a large part of it does come down to having that time to have those discussions. If those line managers feel that they're under pressure, that they do not have time to stop and think, They're perhaps not going to be prioritizing the time that's needed to have a one-to-one conversation. And again, we know that to be effective in providing that support, you do need to have that one-to-one conversation with your line reporter. Trying to have a broad brush approach is not going to be particularly effective.
Al ElliottSo we're clearly putting a lot on these leaders and line managers. All of our expectations are rising, and of course we need to work to protect our own mental health and the mental health of our leadership peers and managers across the business. So I asked Andrew, what can we actually do to ensure that leaders and managers are also supported with their mental health?
AndrewSo I think it's about having conversations with those line managers and making sure that as a starting point, everyone is on the same page about the importance and priority of mental health and wellbeing for themselves, for their teams, for the whole organisation. I think it's also about having conversation with those managers about what support they need support their people. Again, if you think about workplace adjustments, for example, you might be having team members come to you as a line manager asking for workplace adjustments. But if you're not sure of your organization's policy on the subject, if you're not sure what the organization deems reasonable or not reasonable, what budget's available, how you're able to effectively signpost to support that you might have internally, or how you signpost externally, Those are all barriers to that line manager feeling able to support, to be able to support themselves. So again, it's having that conversation with a manager about what can, you know, that senior leader, that business owner, what support can they provide their line managers that's going to make the process as simple as possible? And again, that's often a reason that employees themselves quote why they don't disclose that they have a mental health problem, because they don't have faith that anything's going to change as a result. And quite often for the line manager, that's because they don't know how to— they'll have the conversation, but they don't know how to then enact the change that's required. So just trying to have really strong communication and real clarity for what next steps look like for line managers is really important. But I'd also look to signpost employees and line managers and senior leaders, just everybody, to our wellness action plan template. So it's probably the most commonly given recommendation that we have in mind to businesses that we work with. But a wellness action plan is essentially, for line managers, a bit of a template on how to have a conversation with a line report. But it goes through what are the things that are sources of stress and sources of poor mental health for you? What supports you to have the best possible day at work? What supports you to thrive at work? When you're struggling, what does that look like? How does that manifest for you? Are there any signs that I should be looking for? Which, if you're working now in a hybrid environment, actually having that plan and having your employee tell you explicitly what that looks like is really important, because it might be harder to kind of pick out some of those elements or changes in behavior if you're only looking at someone through a screen. And then what do you want them to do? So if they do spot some of those signs, do you want them to say something? Do you want them to send an email? Would you prefer that they— message someone in your household or a family member, what do you as an employee want those next steps to look like? So again, it's really helpful for line managers to facilitate a conversation with their line reports. And if you feel that you don't have a particularly supportive manager as an employee, it can be a really helpful reflective exercise in and of itself. But also it does give you a kind of entry point to having that conversation with your line, your line manager. Because you've already done the hard work of thinking about the questions, reflecting on them, putting them down on paper, and saying, this is how I think I could be a more productive employee. And positioning that with your line manager is a very difficult conversation to not listen to. And again, it gives it a real obvious structure for a line manager to be able to take away, read, and fully comprehend and understand.
Leanne ElliottJust to pick up on a couple of things that Andrew said there, I think helping line managers signpost is really important. Just create a one-page document, you know, based on the challenges that people are experiencing and have a service that managers can signpost employees to if they need to. It's not fair to put our line managers in these situations where, you know, a vulnerable employee comes to them and they don't know what to do or can't do anything about it. And I think as a second part to that as well, it's training line managers to have these difficult conversations, to not freak out if an employee comes to them and says, I'm not doing so great. Our instinct is to fix things, particularly line managers. We just want to fix things, we want to make it better. And as we talked so much before, often it's just creating a space for somebody to be heard, to talk about what they're experiencing, and just listen. But of course, again, line managers need this training and need this development to help them do that effectively. If you are looking at line manager training please do get in touch. Uh, we have— again, we can signpost you to some great providers and talk to you about the, the type of line manager training you want that's going to have the most impact in your business. The final aspect of secondary-level interventions that we want to highlight is earlier interventions. So secondary-level, along with primary-level interventions, are a really important opportunity to prevent mental health challenges from escalating. It really is about prevention of a cure. Mental health is common. 1 in 6 of us will experience a mental health disorder in our lifetime. That's more than diabetes, which is 1 in 11, heart attacks, that is 1 in 8, Alzheimer's, which is 1 in 9. It's the same as a stroke, 1 in 6. Prevention is a powerful approach in the workforce, and many providers are championing this, including Cooth Work. Let's hear from Michael.
MichaelSo I think really where we need to be looking at as a whole, everybody who's at the water cooler event, and everybody like myself, my colleagues at Cooth Work, and the wellbeing leaders we work with, somehow we need to try and put in some early interventions in there. Because we can all try and provide fixes at the end. You know, there's great support through EAPs and, um, There's some great resources out there to help people who are actually going through a mental health crisis and that kind of cure side. But I think where we need to really focus our energy now is on prevention and early intervention. You know, this is a personal opinion of mine, but I always think that mental health is mental health safety because if you're dealing with construction industries or emergency services like we do, you've got— there's a heavy emphasis on prevention. You talk to someone from the fire services, right? They learned a long time ago about the best way of preventing a fire, or the best way of tackling a fire is that the fire doesn't exist in the first place. So fire services spend enormous amounts of their resources and time preventing fires, educating the public, changing culture and understanding. And that's exactly the same approach that we should be taking with mental health. The best way to prevent mental health decline, or the best way to deal with mental health decline, is to prevent it happening in the first place.
Leanne ElliottI started this episode with the lines of defence in risk management to really make the point that there is synergy, but we've also done it before. If we look at the number of deaths caused by accidents in work in 1912, it was estimated that between 18,000 and 21,000 workers died. With improved awareness and efforts from business leaders, that went down to 13,000 in the 1950s. We then had the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974, and that saw deaths by workplace accidents drop to just 651. Between 2021 and 2022, there were 123 deaths due to accidents at work. That's 21,000 to 123 in 100 years. It really, it really is. It really shows that through awareness, improved regulation, and prevention, we can make a significant difference if we take on this responsibility as businesses, as leaders, to improve the state of mental health in our workplaces. I've worked with C-suite leaders who take enormous pride in health and safety improvements, improvements they've made in their workplace or in their manufacturing sites or in their supply chains. Imagine if leaders took the same approach and pride in reducing the prevalence of mental illness. Here's more from Michael and the work he's doing at COOF to encourage this approach.
MichaelI mean, we talk to hundreds of companies every, every year, and the wellbeing leaders and also leaders of companies. companies who are interested in improving the mental health of their staff. So it's not just restricted to the HR and wellbeing set, but those are the people we normally have first conversations with because they're in tune with it. But when we speak to them, it's interesting when you ask them what they already have in place. And what we tend to see— and this is a sweeping generalization, but actually the data in the Flourish does actually speak to this as well. Um, there's quite a formula that most businesses follow when implementing support and interventions for their staff. Um, and it tends to be more on the crisis side, when someone's really in dire need of help, because that's when they're most visible. They're off. They're absent. They've left the company, or something catastrophic has happened. And that's when it suddenly registers with the organization and the leadership that, oh, right, okay, we need to do something. And I'm saying this is often a trigger. There are, thankfully, lots of employers out there who are proactive and realize this at a very early stage and are doing taking steps to prevent things like this happening. But by and large, the theme, the trend is that things happen when the need arises. Because you're talking about investing finite resources, time, money spent, and that tends to happen when something, the red light flashes. But by then, it's already happened. So really what we're trying to talk to employers about, um, today and in general is about how to get that early warning, how to get in there and first of all provide the tools for them to understand what's going on below the waterline. So before it becomes a red light flashing.
Al ElliottSo Michael then went on to say that we can use this data to not only understand the current state of mental health in an organisation, But we can predict what will happen if the risk isn't managed or the early interventions aren't put into place. Yep, we're back to employee insights again.
MichaelWe have tools like Flourish, which provide a deep dive into the mental wellbeing of your workforce. We also have our ongoing Quell reporting, which provides course corrections and helps you identify presenting factors as you go along, so you can tailor your engagement content and employee engagement programs, what you choose to talk about in your business. But it also helps you tailor the support that's needed. But what we're seeing is the crisis support goes in first, and then there's a bit of a, kind of a sit back and, oh, we've done it now, or we've got everything covered. But then what we try to do is then start the conversation about, okay, so that's great that you've got that. And we think that EAPs, crisis support, mental health first aiders, they are absolutely critical to your ecosystem of support for your workforce. But then we start asking about what they're doing in terms of preventing things getting into the stage where they actually need to have first aid from a mental health first aider, um, or the crisis support, access to crisis support in their EAP. You know why? What are you going to do for the other 95% of your staff who are potentially, you know, they're not covered by these, um, resources? They don't need them. They're not at crisis level, but they're certainly wanting to talk to someone. And that gets— that's where it gets really interesting because all of a sudden then you realize there's no budget for it in a lot of businesses. So it's a business case and they're trying to prove the need for something which might happen. So we provide— providing the data and the tools to be able to see what is coming through before it actually becomes a crisis point. is where we're at. We try and help people understand what they've got and what they need to provide, both in the workplace, in a virtual environment, how to change culture. And those insights are probably the bit that we see lacking most when people first start out on their journey on how do we introduce a mental wellbeing support programme for our staff.
Al ElliottSo I'm pretty sure that back in 1912, the owners of mines and construction companies were like, well, it's the workers' responsibility to avoid falling off a frickin' timber or something 1,000 feet. And of course, that changed over time. And now I don't think any construction company would ever think, oh, it's not my problem, it's not my responsibility to ensure that my workers are safe. I'm sure they're all going to say, yeah, it's definitely my responsibility. So we kind of feel like we're back in 1912. 12, or perhaps a bit further on, for mental health, in that now people are starting to realize, leaders and organizations are starting to realize, it is actually our responsibility to— we deal with physical health, it's now our actual responsibility to ensure that people in our organization have got good mental health. So we are really, really early on at this. And if you're listening to this and you're nodding along with what Lianne says, just think you're a pioneer. You are like the 1 in 100 people who are actually thinking about this right now. In 20, 30, 40 years' time, we're gonna see this massive reduction in numbers, hopefully, because of regulation, because people are taking responsibility for it, because of people like you who are listening who are actually doing something about it. So well done.
Leanne ElliottI, I'm, I just wanna stand up and like clap right now. It's like, I'm inspired. Let's do this.
Al ElliottI'm the Tony Robbins of the, of, of the wellbeing world. Say yes.
Leanne ElliottNo. Brilliant. Brilliant and well, well said. So the final level is the tertiary level, and this is probably the one you're most familiar with and will definitely be the focus of most wellbeing support providers out there. It's about providing support or treatment for individuals experiencing problems with psychological wellbeing without making changes to the situation. So no changes in the environment, it's all about treatment for the individual. So that's things like counselling or return to work policies. So while our aspiration is to create environments that protect mental health and prevent mental health challenges, sadly we're a long way off that. We don't operate in silos, and as leaders, it's important to recognise the external pressures that are causing added strain to our mental health. To explain more, here's Michael from Cuthwork.
MichaelUm, in fact, we've just done our own Flourish research which shows that 37% of staff are at risk of burnout. Depression's very high as well. From that same source, there's over half of staff are at risk of burnout. So the fallout from COVID has— is really kind of happening now. We're also experiencing new challenges as well, which are impacting on people's mental health, such as the cost of living. That's really kind of what's taking the limelight at the moment. And of course, financial health and mental health are very, very strongly and closely linked. So we're dealing with, and we're seeing presenting issues from our data through the people using the system, that they've got money worries, money worries, relationship issues, things that are happening in the home affecting what's happening in the workplace, what's happening in the workplace affecting what's at home and the family unit. That's what we're seeing.
Al ElliottNow, Michael went on to explain that the external pressures in the post-COVID era are adding up, and so the impact is actually unprecedented.
MichaelRight, okay, well, there's an interesting story, um, uh, that hit the news on Sunday, and that was about how ambulance services were dealing— they dealt with 1.8 million. Now, I'll have to fact-check that because I'm trying to recall the stat, but 1.8 million people with mental health issues. That's the ambulance services just seeing that. So I think it's— the problem's not going away. I think we're going to see all those STEP, you know, social, technological, economic, and political, or PESTLE, however far you want to extend it, all those factors which none of us have control over. You know, you and I sitting here, we can't control what's happening in other parts of the world. We can only do our bit. But I think these things are mounting up. We are experiencing, and the human population is experiencing challenges right now. And especially in the UK, which is where we focus, employees and their families are all experiencing external factors that influence their mental health. that they have no control over. And it's unprecedented. So it's quite a unique system position we find ourselves in. And I think when you refer to this to the workplace, we're seeing— and through our Flourish research, which is a really great report, kind of highlights the influencing factors It helps you benchmark and understand where your mental health of your staff are, what their needs are, but it also helps identify and reveal the influencing factors on what's causing poor mental health in your workforce. The factors that are going to affect are having to do more with less, people at work dealing with Cost of living, that's constantly weighing on their mind. The mental health, the things that are going on in their mind, really affecting their ability to do their jobs. And then things that are happening in the workplace, burnout, we've talked about that, unmanageable workloads, all those things that are happening, the extra pressure they're experiencing in the work. in the workplace, and then how that carries when they get back home and how they interact with their family. And it becomes this, um, this multiplier effect.
Leanne ElliottMichael was very clear in our conversation. Tertiary-level interventions are great, but they only serve as a solution at crisis point. He introduced me to the missing majority in the context of the typical mental health support we see in organisations.
MichaelIf you can imagine a typical mental wellbeing support ecosystem and approach, what we would normally see, most people, most companies that get started, they're focusing on the 2 ends of the spectrum. So they'll have the crisis support, but they'll also have an app, a digital app, which will be step counting. It'll include mindfulness exercises and things like that. But there's this concept called the missing middle. I think it's well quoted. I can't remember which company defined that. We define it as the missing majority because those people who are using mindfulness apps and step counters, they tend to be more on the flourishing side. You know, they are maintaining their resilience. The crisis side we know is about 2 to 5%. What about that massive number of people in the middle and the— depending on which statistic you read, the 55% or the 68% of staff who just won't talk about their mental health, especially to their employer? You know, what do they do? How do you prevent them from sliding? into a crisis point, and how do you keep them in the healthy stage where they are, you know, the pure activity of doing work creates stress and anxiety. It's part of what we do. But keeping that within a healthy range, and how do you help people and provide the tools for them to maintain that healthy relationship with stress and anxiety without it slipping into the negative and the burnout and all the major issues and, and the issues that are going to affect workforce and our ability to function as organisations.
Leanne ElliottMichael and I also chatted about the similarities when it comes to disengagement or performance management. We tend to focus our energies on the fires or the people that are making the most noise, and often at the expense of those that are in need of our leadership and in need of our support.
MichaelAnd they've got to have an outlet. And it's not always they're ready to talk in person or on the phone. They can't form the words. So how do they do that? I mean, we happen to have a tool which enables people to chat and type and— or just explore their own self-therapeutic options or join the online community. That's what we've got. But it is part of a bigger ecosystem. You know, you've got to have the onsite ability for people to talk in person or on the phone as well. We're not saying that you don't need any of that. You kind of need to cover as much as you can. But everybody's organization and workforce is a different makeup, and they have different needs, and understanding what the organizational needs are of your workforce. Um, is probably the starting point, um, rather than just going down the same formula that is prescribed, um, or, or the, um, current recent thinking. It's like, what is right for your workforce in your organisation? What mental wellbeing needs do they need?
Leanne ElliottTertiary interventions have a very important place in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of ourselves, And our employees. And I'm sure this Mental Health Awareness Week and month you have heard lots and lots about this type of wellbeing and mental health intervention. We are not saying that they don't have a place or they don't work. It's more that they need to be playing a role in a broader ecosystem of support that also includes primary level and secondary level interventions. And this is a contribution that we wanted to offer to Mental Health Awareness Week. that an effective wellbeing strategy needs to be data-led and holistic in its approach. As leaders, we should be identifying the primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions that meet the needs of our employees and have measurable impact on wellbeing.
Al ElliottRight, we've covered a lot, so let's end this conversation by looking to the future. We asked Andrew from Mind what he thinks the future holds for mental health awareness and protection.
AndrewAnd then I think the next big thing that we are seeing, again, thinking more positively at those that are doing fantastic things, particularly amongst those that we work with and that we've worked with for a number of years. They've really established again that foundational understanding of what mental health is, what best practice looks like, and they're now wanting to explore how does that intersect with other areas of people's identity. So thinking about support for mental health and menopause, for example, or mental health for parents, or how does that intersect with neurodiversity or the LGBT community? And again, for those that read the Index Insights, they'll see that we've got a breakdown of results according to people from minority ethnic communities, LGBT communities, and young careers. And a key recommendation is really thinking moving forwards for those organizations that are doing fantastic things, not just thinking of what is your mental health strategy, but thinking about how do you make that strategy audience specific and think about the different needs and challenges that different kinds of employees within your business might be facing. And I think that's the exciting thing that we're going to be seeing over the next few years. And again, the exciting thing that we're seeing at this very event. So again, you can see that there are services that are for menopause, there are services about parents and mums. So again, I think that's the really positive narrative that's coming out of today. and that we're going to see over the next couple of years.
Leanne ElliottI hope that's given you some information, inspiration to create a wellbeing strategy that is going to have impact, real impact on your employees' mental health. Thank you so much to our incredible guests, to Amy, to Michael, and to Andrew. We salute you. We are behind you. We are championing you. Keep doing the incredible work. It is making a difference and it is driving change.
Al ElliottAs always, we'll leave all the links to our guests and the services they offer in the show notes, including a link to incredible Amy's mentoring and stretching services and also her training courses, the research reports quoted by Andrew and Michael, and the services offered by both Mind and Cooth Work.
Leanne ElliottYes, and do keep an eye on our website. We are in the process of updating it and adding more exciting content to it, which we will tell you about very, very soon. Thank you so much for listening. It's another week, um, and we've got another episode next week. We're very predictable in that way.
Al ElliottWe are. And if you are listening to this now, let me see, when will this go out? This will go out on Wednesday. You won't have much time. We'll be at the Clark and Wilde Design Week on Tuesday, Wednesday. So if you listen to this Wednesday morning, you're gonna have to run really quickly down to the Clark and Wilde Design Week and you'll come and find us there. Um, and so we'll see you in a week's time with another hopefully great episode.
Leanne ElliottBye.
Al ElliottBye-bye.
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