Mental Health 17 | Workplace Mental Health Institute

If you are asking ‘R U OK?, you are a little late

13/09/2016

Here in Australia, we recently celebrated RUOK day. Its an annual reminder to check in with friends and colleagues on their mental health. I think it’s a great initiative, bringing much needed awareness to mental health issues, in an attempt to reduce stigma.

And I always struggle with it too, because as a manager, if you are asking ‘R U OK?’, it’s quite possible that you are already behind the eight ball. It often means there’s a problem already and you’ve left it go on too long, to the point where now you’re noticing the signs that the person might not be ‘OK’.

Of course, if that’s the case, it’s a good idea to step in and ask the question, and respond accordingly of course. (Note: if you or your team don’t know what to do after asking the question, it’s a good idea to get some training in that).

But as good as asking that question is, and as good as it may feel to ask, as managers, we can do better. What can you do to help your team BEFORE it gets to the point of asking RUOK?

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See you may think you have the upper hand. And in a sense, you do! You have a lot of power in the eyes of your staff. You are the one who appraises their performance, and makes the big decisions. But let’s not be deluded here. Our staff are appraising us every moment of everyday. And it is precisely because we have been given that power, by virtue of our job title, that people will start to watch us more, and even worry about us. You see, they are not necessarily appraising YOU, but how their relationship with you is traveling. ‘Does my manager like me?’, ‘Are they happy with my work?’, ‘How are we doing?’ ‘R WE OK?’. And the answer to that question will make all the difference to how your people interact with you, how they engage with their work, and how their mental health and wellbeing is.

The smart manager will handle this question, not by asking RUOK? But by regularly reassuring your team members that ‘WE R OK’. For a mentally healthy team, this is now part of your job as a manager.

Of course, you don’t want to over do it, or under do it – you’ll need to get the balance just right.

So, what are some tips for spreading the WE R OK message?

Make sure you connect with all your reports regularly
Diarise at least once a month for an individual catch up with your key people
EXPRESS how important they are to you i.e. some managers use that opportunity to remember why the person was hired (as a positive experience)
Be human, share of yourself appropriately i.e. what you did on the weekend, something about your hobbies, or travels.
Don’t share inappropriately i.e. how terribly depressed/stressed/angry/lost you are at the new venture
Set a clear vision for your team and regularly talk about it
Continue to tell your people ‘WE R OK’

If you do these, you’ll see a remarkable improvement both in the mental health of your team and the levels of engagement.

Let me know your thoughts and how you went.

Author: Peter Diaz

Peter Diaz is the CEO of Workplace Mental Health Institute. He’s an author and accredited mental health social worker with senior management experience. Having recovered from his own experience of bipolar depression, Peter is passionate about assisting organisations to address workplace mental health issues in a compassionate yet results-focussed way. He’s also a Dad, Husband, Trekkie and Thinker.

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‘Work-Life Balance’ is a trap

26/08/2016

A colleague of mine was putting together some guidelines for her company about how to minimize workplace stress, and stay mentally and emotionally well at work, and she asked me to have a look over it and provide some feedback.

Looking at the list of strategies her company had come up with, I noticed that about 90% of them focused on things like limiting work hours to the 8 hour shift, making sure to ‘switch off’ from work as soon as you leave, not accessing work emails and phones outside of work hours, and basically adhering to a strict distinction between “work time” and “life” time. Now this isn’t an uncommon idea, we’ve all heard of the phrase ‘work-life balance’, but let’s delve in a bit deeper.

If you look at the language used in this expression and the subconscious connotations it sends, you might come to the conclusion that it would be better not to use the phrase at all, and definitely not promote it.

Firstly, when we juxtapose two ideas like this next to each other, we are implying that they are opposite of each other, or at least very distinct and different elements. This is especially dangerous when we compare ‘work’ and ‘life’. Let me ask you – what is the opposite of life? …. It’s ‘death’, right? So by juxtaposing work and life, we are actually equating ‘work’ with death! Are you not alive at work? When did ‘work’ become a bad thing?

Now I know this isn’t what is intended when people use the expression, or recommend it to others, but, psychologically, this interpretation can be made very quickly and subconsciously, without us really paying any conscious attention to it. After all, it’s not what we mean, but what is being heard.

If we really buy into the idea of work-life balance, it often is not long before we experience ‘life’ as good, and ‘work’ as bad, and then it makes sense to want to put some limits and boundaries around how long we spend in that ‘bad’ place. As a manager, is that the message you want to send your staff?

But what if work wasn’t bad at all? After all, the research shows that overall, work is good for your mental health and for recovery from mental distress. And what if work was simply a part of life? What if you even enjoyed, looked forward to, and found fulfillment in your work? Would you want to limit how long you spent in that state?

Read more on self-care and workplace wellbeing

Now of course, our lives are rich and full of different aspects. It is important, and most people get a great sense of fulfillment from spending time, energy and attention on other things too, like family, friends, health, travel, hobbies, etc. We should make sure we do have time for these activities. But there is inherent danger in separating work from these areas, and viewing it as a negative part of life.

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Our recommendation would be to find work that you do enjoy, and is fulfilling, where you are not spending each day watching the clock and measuring, to make sure you give no more than you have to. If you love what you’re doing its not work anyway.

If you look at the people who are very successful in their field of endeavor, whether its business, sports, creative arts, parenting, or anything else, they don’t usually stick to a minimum number of hours. They don’t need to ‘switch off’ afterwards, because they love thinking and talking about their passion.

So, next time you catch yourself talking about ‘work-life balance’, think about this. It’s all ‘life’ – there are 24 hours a day and your life is made up of how you choose to spend your time. I hope you’re doing something you enjoy.

And if you’re a manager, I’m sure you appreciate a team of people who enjoy doing what they do, and are flexible enough to take on some additional responsibilities from time to time, or do some overtime occasionally. And of course, as a manager who is conscious of mental health and wellbeing, you wouldn’t take advantage of that flexibility, and you would appreciate and recognize that person’s contribution.

Author: Emi Golding

Emmaline (Emi) Golding is a registered psychologist and Director of Psychology for the Workplace Mental Health Institute. With experience both at the frontline and in Senior Management positions within mental health services, Emi is passionate about educating and expanding people’s knowledge of mental health issues, particularly within workplaces. For her own well being, Emi loves to dance and spend time with friends. She also enjoys learning languages and travelling to new and exciting places around the world.

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What Can YOU Do About Stress at Work?

15/08/2016

When it comes to workplace stress, and what to do about it, most people, most managers, will start to think about things in the workplace environment. Things that I would call ‘external factors’ like workload, overtime hours, the physical environment, etc. And these are all good considerations.

Yes, we should look at them. But very rarely is any attention paid to the ‘internal factors’. Those qualities, characteristics, or skills that reside inside each individual, and impact upon how much stress they will experience, regardless of the external environment. You see, in the same workplace, given the same conditions, different people will experience different levels of stress. Some people thrive on a challenge, work non stop and love doing it! Where as others seem to fall apart at the same challenges. There are individual differences, but that’s not to say that they are necessarily fixed. The studies are indicating that although people may be born with different sensitivities, and have different experience in their upbringing, personal resilience can be learned, like any other skill.

Therefore, when people respond differently to a pressure-filled environment, like many workplaces are, that is due to a combination of things relevant to the individual.

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Think of the analogy to the camel carrying straws on it’s back. We can carry only so much weight before we start to feel a bit strained by it all, and our knees start to shake.

But if we’re the camel, we can also build our muscles so that we become stronger, and able to carry more weight with ease. And that is ‘personal resilience’ or ‘emotional fitness’. If we do certain things to build our emotional stamina, when life (or work) does throw that extra challenge your way, you’ll be much more able to handle it in your stride.

We recently released our on line short course called ‘Creating Personal Resilience‘, which introduces people to some of those techniques that can be used to minimise stress and build emotional stamina or resilience. It’s designed with workplaces in mind, but really, the strategies are tools that can be used in any area of life – after all, we’re still human wherever we are, right?

Building your own personal resilience, focussing on those internal factors, is particularly helpful for those people who might not be in a position to change their work environment. Similarly for managers, if you can’t make changes to the workplace itself, why not think about helping your team members to develop their emotional fitness to better handle the challenges.

Author: Peter Diaz

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Workplace Stress – what are we really talking about here?

10/08/2016

‘Workplace Stress’ is a term I am hearing people use more and more lately. And I like it. It highlights the fact that anybody can experience stress or distress in the workplace.

You see, the Workplace Mental Health Institute specialises in the field of workplace mental health, and when we think about mental health, we think about mental health at every stage of the continuum. Let me explain:

‘Mental Health’ doesn’t just refer to people who are severely distressed, who have perhaps have been diagnosed with a serious mental disorder, or are having an acute mental health emergency.

‘Mental Health’ also refers to people who may be feeling a bit down, a bit anxious about something happening in their life, or just going through a rough patch. We would also describe that as someone experiencing some mental health problems at the moment.

But not only that, mental health can also be used at the other end of the scale (in fact ‘health’ is usually considered a good thing right!!!). So, looking after your ‘mental health’, can mean the person who is coping really well with life, happy, fulfilled, and waking up every morning feeling positive about work and life in general.

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You see, when we think about it this way, mental health is relevant to everyone. We all sit somewhere along that scale all the time. We move up and down that scale too – it’s not fixed.

I think sometimes when we talk about ‘mental health at work’, people tend to assume we’re talking about the severe end – when everything goes wrong, when someone is suicidal, or has an episode at work. And that if that is not happening, then everything is OK.

But that’s not it. Not at all. There are plenty of people who may not yet be suffering enough for it to show up as a crisis, but have no doubts, it is still impacting on them personally, on their productivity, on their relationships with team mates and their manager. This ‘workplace stress’ needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed quickly – before it escalates into something much more serious. In my next article, I’ll look at some of the different approaches to dealing with it.

But for now, remember ‘workplace mental health’ is a constant. It always exists, its just a matter of where along that continuum it is right now, for any one person, or for the whole group. And depending where it is on that continuum, there are different mental health activities which need to be happening (more on that soon too).

Author: Emi Golding

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How is your workplace’s Mental Wealth?

08/08/2016

Back in 2014 I coined the new term ‘Mental Wealth’. Workplace Mental Wealth describes the business potential of an organisation, as a direct result of how well it fosters the mental health of its people. But what is it exactly?

It’s a measure of your organisation’s ability to create, collaborate, problem solve and take initiative. It’s a measure of your team’s resilience and ability to keep going when things are tough and uncertain. These ‘soft’ factors are more important these days than ever. It’s the passion, creativity and collaborative efforts of an organisation’s people that creates wealth for shareholders.

Mentally wealthy workplaces display the following characteristics:

People are focused, creative and highly productive, and free of debilitating chronic stress and anxiety
The dynamic between people in an organisation is one of respect and inclusion, where people feel free to voice opinions and contribute ideas, for which they are valued as an employee and as a person
Leaders truly recognise the value of people, encourage diversity in values and styles, and actively curtail behaviours that diminish or demean others
There is a positive organisational climate, absent of bullying & harassment, mental injury, stress claims and mental health crises

Read more on workplace mental health and wellbeing….

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How does your organisation measure up?

If you are interested in developing your management team so they can create a mentally wealthy workplace, then the Leaders Masterclass will help. Contact the office for more information at admin@wmhi.com.au

Author: Peter Diaz

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Why do so many workplaces fail at mental health?

01/08/2016

There seems to be this idea floating about in the business world that in order to be profitable and productive, one needs to be hard and tough. Yet another contradictory idea seems to be that mental health is fluffy, soft, weak. Many people’s idea of good mental health is extreme. One where people have full love, consensus and agreement for all. Like everyone holding hands and singing Kumbayah. Nothing could be further from what’s required to promote and maintain a workplace’s mental wealth. Maybe that’s why so many organisations and leaders do so poorly at mental health. Either they adopt the “toughen up! take a spoonful of cement” approach, or they go too far the other way, with a “touchy, feely, anything goes” approach.

Meanwhile, 1 in 5 Australians suffer from a mental disorder and countless others detest going to work. (The stats are similar in other developed nations by the way). How has it become such a pervasive problem in our organisations and why isn’t more being done about it? To understand why, we need to look at the dynamics between the players in our organisations and ask ourselves what might be stopping them from taking action.

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The prevailing management style through much of the last couple of centuries has been to keep a professional distance from staff members. The manager’s job was to set the direction and manage the performance of the employee, and the employee’s job was to reliably perform their tasks to the best of their ability. It’s a similar relationship to that between a machine and it’s operator, which is not surprising, given much of the early work was done by men on assembly lines in factories. Employees were cogs in a machine, so to speak, and much of the management and HR thinking was (and still is) centred around ensuring enough employees are available to maintain production, and that they perform reliably and at maximum efficiency. It would be ridiculous for an operator to ask his machine, ‘Are you ok?’. Similarly, many managers today feel that asking an employee about their mental state is not appropriate – it’s too personal, or taboo, or simply ‘not my job’.

The reality is that the prevailing management paradigm is fundamentally not equipped to deal with mental health issues. And that’s the main reason so many workplaces fail. A new paradigm is needed, for a new world of work.

Author: Peter Diaz

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Why 65% of people won’t get help if they have a mental problem

01/08/2016

The reasons as to why people do anything, are many and complex. The research shows that around 65% of people won’t even seek treatment if they experience mental distress. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that stigma, discrimination and neglect prevent care and treatment from reaching people with mental disorders. What about the many people in workplaces that don’t have a full blown mental disorder but are at risk? Here we look at three major reasons people have identified as to why they won’t ask for help.

It’s just stress. The most common mental disorders (anxiety and depression) tend to be insidious, in that they gradually worsen over time. Many sufferers don’t even realise they have a mental health issue, until it’s been months or even years since they’ve felt happy. It’s convenient for a sufferer to dismiss their situation as temporary or ‘just stress’. But there is a difference between ‘stress’ and something more serious.

Just suck it up. People tend to compare themselves with others, and if everyone else seems fine, then they don’t want to be the exception, or the ‘weak one’. People will compare themselves to their parents who ‘did it tough and never complained’. (The truth is that it’s likely they faced the same issues and felt the same way, it’s just that the conditions were less understood and there weren’t the resources widely available to assist.) It’s also very easy to feel inadequate when you’re seeing all your friends on social media, having a great time and appearing successful, when the reality is, that while few people share their fears and failures for all to see, they most certainly have them. When everyone around you seems to be coping and thriving, the act of admitting you need help and seeking it out can feel like you’ve failed somehow. And a lot of people would rather endure the symptoms than admit they need help.

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Career suicide. Numerous surveys from Australia, the UK, US and Canada have shown that people with a mental health problems are unlikely to disclose it to their employer for fear of being treated less favourably. Even employment lawyers have been quoted advising employees to think twice before disclosing. Many employees believe that, if they disclose, they’ll be passed over for project and promotion opportunities, or that their ‘internal brand’ will be tarnished, or that the organisation will take steps to exit them.

As you can see, these are real concerns people have. There’s a need for management to take the lead and address these concerns lest them become part of the culture.

If you’d like Workplace Mental Health Institute to run the Suicide Prevention Skills course in your workplace, please Call us on (02) 8073 7686 or take the comprehensive self paced online course.

Author: Peter Diaz

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Building a Mentally Healthy Workplace: 4th Pillar

26/07/2016

What do mentally wealthy organisations differently to others? Good question, right?

What Mentally wealthy organisations do is they see resilience and wellbeing as an integral part of their culture, in the extraordinary cases – it IS their culture. It’s not just an add on.

Think back to your time in organisations over the past maybe 10 to 20 years or so. How many ‘strategic initiatives’ can you recall? I can think of a stack of them: Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, Employee Onboarding, Activity Based Costing, Management by Objectives, Triple Bottom Line Accounting… And quite a few more. How many of these really stuck and became part of the fabric of the organisation? How many are you actively practicing today?

Probably not many, right?

And this is the problem with bolt on initiatives. The Board or the leadership team will get hold of an idea from somewhere and decide it will be the next silver bullet that’s going to give them a strategic advantage over competitors and transform the industry landscape. Project teams are established, consultants are hired, strategic plans are announced, budgets are approved and work begins. But before long the project team encounters the headwinds of organisational inertia. When push comes to shove, for example when a leader’s bonus rides on hitting a sales target, they will prioritise business as usual over supporting the project team. With bolt on initiatives, what looks like commitment is actually in-principle support, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of ‘the important stuff’.

Read the other Pillars of Mentally Healthy Workplace….

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There is a ROI of 2.3 on average direct correlation between the mental health of your employees and your organisation’s financial performance. It is no-brainer. Therefore it is too important to chance employee mental health to the success of your ‘Wellness Program’ or ‘RUOK Awareness Day’. Mental health built into everything you do cannot be an add-on to what you do. It needs to be in built into everything you do. It needs to be part of the how you think or how you talk in your organization. It needs to permeate your policies. It needs to permeate how you move the organization.

You can cut logs and carry them to the nearest town and then put them on a truck. Or, you can chug the logs onto the river and let the flow take it to the nearest town. Which one is easier? Don’t make your employee mental health initiative a bolt on that you have to expend additional energy to execute. Make it flow by incorporating it into the way your leaders lead.

It can’t be like, “Oh, did we talk about mental health this quarter? We need to put something in the Board report.” No, it happens as a matter of course. It’s what we do. It’s not a bolt-on, it’s totally integrated.

That’s it for now. I hope you’ve enjoyed this Pillar.

Talk soon and have a mentally healthy day.

Author: Peter Diaz

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A dummy in each hand and one in the mouth – values and the smart manager

26/07/2016

Today I’m going to write a different type of blog. Stay with me. I had to share. This morning as I reached into my pocket I felt a weird, clunky thing. I didn’t know what it was but then it hit me, a dummy! My son’s dummy (“pacifier” for our international audience) How cute. It put a smile in my heart. I remembered that my son, Lucas, who is just a little over 2 years old, this morning had lots of dummies. Three to be precise. He had a dummy in each hand and one in his mouth. This morning he had to have all the dummies he could find. I found it interesting because he wasn’t distressed. So, I asked myself, why? and it dawned on me, ‘he just feels good with them’. He feels safe. But not just any kind of safe. These dummies make him feel safe emotionally. So much so that now, he treasures these dummies. He obviously doesn’t need that many dummies but he appreciates them for what he feels they give him. Safety, peace, balance. Now, obviously the dummies don’t give him these feelings, he creates them out of association. And as a result, he also now feels grateful for the dummies. Lucas VALUES his dummies because, unknowingly, he values how they make him feel.

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Now I’m not going to go into the pros and cons of dummies for babies and children – this isn’t a parenting blog. But it made me think – what about us? Grown ups? Are we any different? Or similar? When most people think of work, their job, how do they feel? Most don’t look forward to going to work. Many even get anxious about going to work, like I did for many years. Why? If we let little people’s experience teach us, it’s because we have not linked the fulfillment of our values with what we do. We don’t think they are linked.

The smart manager will pay attention now. When people feel their values are being met in what they do, they become passionate. They are at peace with themselves. Happy. In short, it’s good for their mental health. Makes sense, right? So why isn’t this happening everywhere? Why aren’t managers helping people link their values to what they do? This is going to make them mentally healthy and more valuable employees, right?

The problem is, most managers don’t know this, and if they do, they don’t know where to start. The values conversation has been relegated to something the company does every couple of years that doesn’t mean much to anyone else but the leadership team. And it’s only a conversation about the company values, not the individual employee’s personal values. That’s what we need to change. We need to make values relevant to all our employees. We need to help them see how the values of the company relate to their individual values. We need to meaningfully engage them in the process of clarifying their own values, the values of the team and the values of the company. And then, the effective leader, will speak of them often. Regularly. Because these values have become your ‘why we do things the way we do around here’.

That makes for good mental health.

By the way, Lucas held onto the dummies until we arrived to childcare. And when we arrive he knows they go in his bag, where he can get them anytime he wants. But he’s usually having too much fun to think about them through the day. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had as much fun at our workplaces as kids do at daycare?

PS if you want help to start a mentally healthy values conversation in your workplace, give me a call and I’ll get my team onto it.

Author: Peter Diaz

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Category Archives: Mental Health

If you are asking ‘R U OK?, you are a little late

Don't forget to subscribe to our monthly eMag - WorkLife

Expert insights and tips on how to build resilient and mentally healthy workplace cultures delivered straight to your inbox each month.

‘Work-Life Balance’ is a trap

Don't forget to subscribe to our monthly eMag - WorkLife

Expert insights and tips on how to build resilient and mentally healthy workplace cultures delivered straight to your inbox each month.

What Can YOU Do About Stress at Work?

Don't forget to subscribe to our monthly eMag - WorkLife

Expert insights and tips on how to build resilient and mentally healthy workplace cultures delivered straight to your inbox each month.

Workplace Stress – what are we really talking about here?

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Expert insights and tips on how to build resilient and mentally healthy workplace cultures delivered straight to your inbox each month.

How is your workplace’s Mental Wealth?

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Expert insights and tips on how to build resilient and mentally healthy workplace cultures delivered straight to your inbox each month.

Why do so many workplaces fail at mental health?

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Expert insights and tips on how to build resilient and mentally healthy workplace cultures delivered straight to your inbox each month.

Why 65% of people won’t get help if they have a mental problem

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Expert insights and tips on how to build resilient and mentally healthy workplace cultures delivered straight to your inbox each month.

Building a Mentally Healthy Workplace: 4th Pillar

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Expert insights and tips on how to build resilient and mentally healthy workplace cultures delivered straight to your inbox each month.

A dummy in each hand and one in the mouth – values and the smart manager

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Expert insights and tips on how to build resilient and mentally healthy workplace cultures delivered straight to your inbox each month.

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