Category Archives: News

WMHI-Program-Guide

Our 2020 Course Catalogue is out now!

You’ll be amazed at how many different ‘lunch & learns,’ training programs and masterclasses we have at the Workplace Mental Health Institute.

Get ideas for your wellbeing program, and let us know how we can support your mental health and wellbeing goals for your team.

Download the Course Catalogue HERE

SHARE the love, forward it to a friend.

PS, If you want/need/crave something you can’t see in the program guide, send us an email at admin@wmhi.com.au and ask, please. We are very accommodating.

What next?

1. Choose a course you like

2. Call us on +61 2 8935 3885

3. Get a quote.

 

Have a mentally healthy day!

WMHI-Program-Guide
RUOK-day-blog3

On R U OK Day: How Managers Can Make It Easier For Staff To Say, “I’m Not OK”

On R U OK? Day we’re reminded that leaders play an important role in safeguarding and supporting the mental health of their teams. Asking after the mental health of a team member is the first step, and a very important one, in creating a more mentally healthy workplace.

However, what we’ve noticed over the years in our training and consulting work, and what we’ve read in studies from the major world economies, is that employees are reluctant to open up about mental health concerns to their leaders.

A study we completed recently confirmed what we’ve been hearing. We reached out to our community of managers and everyday employees and asked them two questions:

‘If a friend asked R U OK?, and the answer was ‘No’, would you tell them?’

‘If your BOSS asked R U OK?, and the answer was ‘No’, would you tell them?’

And, anticipating the response we might receive, we asked another question:

What advice would you give management to make it easier for their people to say ‘I’m not OK’?

We asked respondents to leave comments on the first two question if they wished, and we asked about their gender and age group so we could look for basic trends.

The results were pretty interesting.

Results

 

RUOK day blog image

 

Consistent with what we’ve seen and read, managers are a lot less trusted by employees when it comes to disclosing their mental health state. 29% of people said they’d hold back from telling a friend if they have a mental health concern. But that figure jumped to almost half when asked if they’d tell their manager.

 

RUOK day blog image

Gender differences

What did surprise us was that women were less likely to disclose than we expected, and actually less likely than men. Is it possible that women feel less secure in their employment than men, and feel a greater need to keep up appearances? This is an area we’ll be looking into with future research.

Age differences

We received low numbers of respondents under 35, so didn’t include them in age comparisons.

We noticed that males aged 35-44 were the least likely to disclose to friends or a boss. Perhaps with these years being the phase were men start to move into senior leadership and take on significant responsibility, that giving the appearance of ‘not handling it’ would be detrimental to their forward progress and so they stay quiet.

The other trend that stood out was respondents aged over 55. Again, it’s possible that older workers are concerned about job security, and perhaps it’s a generational thing: with older people in the main valuing their privacy and separation of personal life from professional life.


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Comments

Would you tell a friend?

Of course, many people said it depends on who the friend is, citing things like:

  • How close they are
  • How easy they are to talk to
  • Whether they had the strength to deal with their reaction
  • Whether they were good listeners and would give their opinion
  • How supportive they are
  • If they thought they could help
  • If the friend has past troubles and perhaps could empathise

For many people, factors like timing, choosing the right setting and how bad things are, were also important.

Reasons they wouldn’t tell a friend included:

  • Not wanting to burden others, especially if they have their own struggles
  • Concern for privacy
  • Not wanting to be seen as a ‘whinger’ or ‘wimp’

But the news was not all bad. There were some strong arguments for telling a friend, a stand out one for us was, “I’ve learned the lesson of when you try to ignore it.” Seems like the message is getting through that asking for help is the best course of action.

Would you tell your boss?

Again, not surprisingly, most respondents said it depends on the person in the big chair.

  • I have faith or trust in my boss
  • It may help them to understand their situation too
  • I work in a supportive organisation
  • I’ve had good personal experience

…were all reasons people said they would and have told their boss.

But the news was not all good. Reasons given for not telling the boss ranged from concern about what might happen:

  • Stays on your record and impacts promotion opportunities
  • Don’t trust the boss
  • May be used against me
  • They may doubt my ability to do the job
  • Blurs boundaries – there are other options available
  • I work in mental health, we are expected to be ‘above that’
  • Fear about being performance managed
  • Don’t want to come across as not having it all together, weak or underperforming

To being once bitten, twice shy:

  • Had a bad past experience
  • Telling my boss complicated the situation
  • Boss avoids me now and I’m discounted
  • It was used to fire me

It’s clear a strong stigma remains around disclosing mental health concerns in the workplace. Alongside asking ‘RUOK?’ which is a noble and very important first step, we need to be giving managers better support. Specifically, we need to do two things:

  1. Help managers break down the stigma attached to mental health issues to create an environment where it’s ok to say, “I’m not OK”
  2. Give them the tools and training to respond and to help an employee who tells them they’re not OK. Sometimes a manager won’t ask because they don’t what to say if the answer is not ‘I’m fine, thanks for asking.’

In doing so, we’ll be creating confident, psychologically safe managers, capable of engaging teams to perform at their best.

Are you a psychologically safe manager? Take the test to find out.

Advice to managers

But don’t just take our word for it. Below we’ve listed verbatim all our respondents’ suggestions for how managers can make it easier for them to disclose a mental health issue without fear of repercussions.
  • Be genuine and authentic, care and empathy – all the time, too late when it comes to R U OK
  • Show interest in the whole person
  • Be available
  • Listen not problem solve
  • Talk about the subject at work, normalise it
  • Peer support group, EAP, resources
  • Discuss options without going down workcover route
  • More conversations
  • Culture of being your whole self at work
  • Open minded and honest
  • Confidential
  • Stress leave, reduced hours, duties, RDOs
  • Better education for managers
  • Let them know re good work too
  • Mental Health and Stress Management Policy
  • Safe that it’s not going to impact job
  • Suggestion boxes for anonymous feedback
  • Ensure privacy
  • Clear open policies promoted
  • Leadership skills for managers
  • Modelling from managers on how to deal with hard times, be vulnerable, take leave etc
  • Don’t doubt the answer when you get it
  • Do something – not just lip service to employee mental health
  • Ask more often not just once a year’
  • Be OK with uncomfortable
  • Treat worker as a human, not a number
  • Get others with a good experience to share it
  • Context – some want to be asked and to talk about it others won’t.
  • Recognise needs of carers (of people with mental illness, elderly, children etc)
  • Ask but also express that work need not be involved as long as performance ok
  • Managers need skills – don’t just pass it off to HR or EAP
  • Know how to follow up the question
On R U OK Day, and every day, let’s ask the question. But let’s go a step further and actualy equip our managers to create the productive and mentally wealthy work environments that we keep asking them for.

If you’d like to know how you can build the capability of your leaders in this space, consider inviting us to run a private Workplace Mental Health Masterclass for Leaders for your managers or team.

Author: Peter Diaz
Peter-Diaz-AuthorPeter 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.

Connect with Peter Diaz on:
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Toxic-Workplace

5 Signs You Might Have a Toxic Culture

A toxic environment is a disease to any business. Unhappy people are demotivated and easily drawn out of the business, which, depending on the industry, can lead to the business having a bad reputation amongst potential employees. So not only is it important that your business doesn’t have a toxic culture, it’s also imperative to know the symptoms that indicate you might and what you can do to stop the disease from spreading. Here are the five most obvious symptoms and what you can do to remedy them:

Dysfunctional relationships among staff.

Signs of infection:

  • Cliquishness
  • Favouritism
  • Lack of communication
  • Grudge-holding
  • Staff are pitted against each other

Remedy:

Team bonding, as clichéd as it sounds, should never be underestimated. Friday afternoon drinks and other social events such as Christmas parties or a quarterly dinner, with 100% inclusion, will work wonders with turning your bitter group of individuals into a team. To further reinforce this, set team based rewards and incentives rather than individual ones. This stops team members feeling like the person next to them is their rival and not their teammate.

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Your people feel they have a lack of work-home balance.

Signs of infection:

Remedy:

Be mindful of the mental health of your staff. Assure them it is your number 1 priority. Be a trusted rock for your staff. If they are having troubles in their personal life, be someone understanding that they can talk to, and if they need it, allow them the time away from work to tend to their personal needs. A happy team member is a lot more effective in an 8-hour day than a miserable one is in a 12 or 15-hour one.


Low morale.

Signs of infection:

  • People are unmotivated
  • People appear downtrodden and frustrated
  • People openly talk about not wanting to be there

Remedy:

Having a high morale will go a long way to ensuring you do not have a toxic work culture. Managing your people with a foundation of positive reinforcement, even when critiquing their performance, is pivotal to curing low morale. Nobody wants to be told they aren’t good enough or aren’t trying hard enough. “Good job” goes a long way in the good times. “We are doing great and will get through this” goes even further in the hard times. Also, be sure to trust your people. Micro-managing them will breed frustration and annoyance among your staff: trust that they know how to do their job and if and when they could do it better, give them feedback.


High turnover of staff.

Signs of infection:

  • New people don’t stay very long
  • You are constantly recruiting and training new employees

Remedy:

High staff turnover is the most obvious sign that something isn’t right in your business. Unfortunately, the reasons for it can be multi layered. It could be due to any of the other symptoms mentioned. To cure this, you must cure the other symptoms because constantly having to hire and bed in new staff will slow your progress and cost you a lot of money. Whereas a happy, experienced team who know the business will get more done, better and faster.


(Uh oh) You.

Signs of infection:

  • You set unrealistic expectations of your staff
  • You are cold and unsympathetic
  • You do not listen to your staff
  • You instil fear in your staff
  • You are hypocritical
  • You scapegoat individuals

Remedy:

Whoa there! That comes off seriously judge-y doesn’t it? I firmly believe that as leaders, we are doing the best we can, with the resources we have.  But this doesn’t stop employees in a toxic culture thinking (even saying) things like this about you.  Being a strong leader, who makes decisions and manages their staff from a place of positivity and genuine care, will cure every symptom of a toxic culture that you have. Take the steps to build and nurture your people into a team who work for one another to achieve their goals. Make your staff feel wanted and appreciated through positive reinforcement. Make them stay because they are loyal to you, their team members and the work culture you have built.

Toxic cultures are nasty places to be.  But as a leader, wouldn’t you like to be part of the clean up crew?

Author: Peter Diaz
Peter-Diaz-AuthorPeter 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.

Connect with Peter Diaz on:
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Workplace-Bullying

Am I Leading or Bullying?

We know the script. Hard ass movie general breaks all the rules, saves world, emerges a hero. Visionary CEO fires people if they can’t describe the value they add to the company within the space of a lift ride, creates fanatical product following, investors rejoice. Political leader promises to ‘drain swamp’, lies repeatedly, maintains multiple conflicts of interest, but that’s ok because we need a guy who’s going to shake things up.

But what lies beneath the gloss and spin of these stories? Does the need to ‘make big change’ excuse treating people with less respect than they deserve? Is it in fact required?

A strong leader recognises that every one of their people are different; they apply that in their interactions with them, and are respected for it. A bully, by contrast, intimidates, threatens and singles out employees. They are feared – not respected – and there is a big difference.

Sir Alex Ferguson, the former Manchester United manager who built the club into one of the true commercial juggernauts of our time over an unparalleled 26-year reign, and who has advised the likes of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (and will be quoted more than once in this post) sums this up perfectly:

“You can’t aspire to be loved, because that isn’t going to happen, nor do you want people to be frightened of you. Stay somewhere in the middle and have them respect and trust and see you as fair.”

So, what makes a strong leader? How can he or she learn who their employees are, how to lead them, motivate them and keep them on course without sacrificing the three pillars of respect, trust and fairness?


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The answers to these questions are slightly more complex. A strong leader observes his or her people and learns about what kind of person they are: What are their habits? How do they express enthusiasm? And if their habits break or their enthusiasm dips, how can you help them get back to their best? This is the essence of leadership: managing people as individuals, and recognising that what works for one person does not necessarily work for another.

Secondly, a strong leader positively reinforces their people. To again quote Sir Alex:

“No one likes to be criticised. Few people get better with criticism; most respond to encouragement instead. For a player – for any human being – there is nothing better than hearing ‘well done.’”

And thirdly, a strong leader never holds a grudge. If performance or behaviour dips outside the bounds, the issue is addressed promptly and that is the end of it. People should never be made to feel uncomfortable in their workplace, and having a lengthy punishment hanging over them does not allow them that comfort and it ultimately shatters the pillars of respect, trust and fairness that a strong leader builds his or her foundations on.

So, if that is a strong leader, what makes a bully?

Workplace bullying is verbal, physical, social or psychological abuse by anyone in the workplace on another team member. For a manager, this means while they can reprimand, demote or terminate a staff member’s employment, they cannot do anything that could be viewed as abuse. This includes:

  • Intimidation
  • Making a staff member feel less important and undervalued
  • Giving pointless tasks to staff that has nothing to do with their job or tasks that are impossible for the staff member to complete
  • Deliberately changing rostered hours or work schedule to make life difficult
  • Withholding information pertinent for a task to be completed properly
  • Forcing a staff member to be excluded from their team mates or taking part in activities that relates to their work
  • Playing mind games or other types of psychological harassment

Managers who do this are not strong leaders. They are bullies.

And finally, what makes a victim? A victim of workplace bullying is not always an easy spot. However, there are signs, that if noticed should set off alarm bells in the mind of their employer. These include:

  • If they are less active or successful at work
  • If they are less confident in themselves or their work
  • Feel scared, stressed, anxious or depressed
  • Their lives outside of work are affected by their work
  • Wanting to stay away from work
  • Feeling they can’t trust their employer or the people they work with
  • Have physical signs of stress like headaches, backaches and sleep problems

It is important to note that bullying does not always come from the leaders in the workplace, it can come from anywhere in the business. A strong leader recognises and acts upon this swiftly and accordingly, because a happy and harmonious workplace is a successful workplace.

Author: Peter Diaz
Peter-Diaz-AuthorPeter 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.

Connect with Peter Diaz on:
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Rise-of-the-robots

The Rise Of The Robots

How Is Artificial Intelligence Impacting Our Mental Health?

If you are at all up to date about what’s happening in the world of technology, you know AI (that’s Artificial Intelligence) is here and about to take over a large proportion of jobs that to date, only humans have been able to do. This is not future stuff, this is NOW stuff.

Über has already deployed driverless cars and trucks with success. Google has been experimenting with driverless cars for years. So, it begs the question: What will happen to all our Über drivers, truck drivers and taxi drivers? And this is only the beginning. Just this week, the first robo-lawyer was deployed also. Now you can get legal advice from a machine. Google, Microsoft and others are spending billions in AI. And this is only what we are aware of.

If drivers, and lawyers, can be replaced by machines with highly sophisticated algorithms, and photographic memory, very similar to what has already happened to toll booth operators, who else can, and will, be replaced?

As Elon Musk recently said,

“humans need to adapt or risk becoming house cats for highly intelligent robots”

The common questions, are – what will happen to all these people looking for jobs? What will happen to the economy? etc…But, I ask another question, ‘What’s going to happen to humanity as we enter a world void of enough work? Traditionally, idle hands has meant an existential crisis in and of its own. But as we enter a new way of interacting and being in the world, it’s my bold prediction that this state of affairs will precipitate an existential crisis the likes of which we have never seen before. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Yes, some people point to the industrial revolution, but our looming revolution will make that pale in comparison.


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Remember: distressed people are dominated by fear. They are negative, create conflict, lash out, get depressed & suicidal and try to control everyone else as a way to get control over their own lives.

“When one of us is distressed, we all pay for it. It’s not a problem you can shift somewhere else.”

We can’t avoid it. So, what can we do to face, and survive, this pending crisis? Most people are not well equipped for change and neither are the businesses they work in. But, for those of you listening and paying attention, there are some things we can get started to minimise the impact:

1 – Ensure the AI conversation includes the existential conversation. So far, the many directors and CEOs I’ve talked to, have recoiled shyly, confused, at the introduction of a topic they are ill prepared to handle both personally and as business leaders

2 – Start introducing ethical long term approaches to downsizing knowing that downsizing is coming. This includes preparing people, as much as possible, for the coming change. Talk to your people about AI and new technologies and their impact on business and how you can face it together. This will give you the chance to come up with some lateral creative solutions.

3 – Take responsibility and take action. Bring in experts to help you with the transition. Be smart and allocate significant resources to it. This is a problem that’s not going away, but that you CAN prepare for.

“By the way, this is a good time to shine as leaders and do the right thing – both for your business and your people”

Good luck 🙂

Author: Peter Diaz
Peter-Diaz-AuthorPeter 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.

Connect with Peter Diaz on:
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Police-line

The Rise Of The Senseless Crime – What ’s Mental Health Got To Do With It?

Just a couple of days ago, in Brisbane out of all places, a man approached another man, and set him on fire. When the attacker appeared in court, he’s described as ‘numb’. Then we are informed that this man has a history of mental disorders. Is there a connection? I guess we’ll never know for sure what on earth possesses a man to do something as horrible to another human being but I can tell you one thing: a mental disorder rarely does. But, drugs, any kind of drugs, do.

A number of eminent psychiatrists and scientists have been warning us for some time now about the power of drugs, medication in a medical setting, to turn us into ‘unfeeling’, ‘numb’, ‘zombies’. Or as I like to call it, ‘chemically induced psychopathy’.


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Drugs can, and often do, impact on our ability to make decisions. Just ask anyone that has ever had a few too many drinks. So do medicines. Am I saying no one should take medicines? Absolutely not. That would make no sense. What I’m saying is that we need to be more aware of their impact on people so we can monitor the effect of medication more closely.

There’s a reason why so many voices are saying that we, as a society, as people, are over medicated. There’s also a reason, and a valid one, why so many voices, educated, experienced voices, are saying that, on the whole, psychiatric drugs, do more harm than good.

Let’s not rush and stop all medication. But let’s take some responsibility and start having an honest conversation.

Author: Peter Diaz
Peter-Diaz-AuthorPeter 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.

Connect with Peter Diaz on:
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1-Million-Payout for workplace mental health

$1 Mil Payout For Bullying & Harassment At Work – Brace Yourselves

A court recently awarded $1 million to a NSW woman who was bullied in the workplace. That’s the largest amount we’ve ever heard of for workplace bullying. The Courts are getting serious!

It just goes to prove how serious the courts are getting about bullying and harassment in the workplace. If this is anything to go by, we expect to see more and more cases like this in the near future.

When it comes to managing employees, this is where things can get really tricky. There are a couple of situations which can occur when it comes to bullying and mental health:

    1. The person does not have any mental health problem, but the bullying causes them to become unwell.
    2. The person has an underlying mental health problem that they may not even know about, which becomes exacerbated when faced with a bullying situation.
    3. The person has a diagnosed mental health problem, which is made worse by bullying.

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The other thing to consider as a manager though, is that a person in one of the last two groups (and that’s a good percentage of people) is more likely to feel bullied and harassed in general.

Generally speaking, people with mental health problems can have a heightened sensitivity to the interpersonal dynamics at play in a workplace (or any other social environment for that matter). We sometimes say they have a good ‘bullshit detector’. They are often more aware of the subtle forms of bullying and harassment that often fly under the radar, or that other people might not notice or have become accustomed to.

On the plus side, this means they can call out the passive-aggressive bullies who are subtly creating nasty working environments for everyone. As managers, you want someone to flag those issues before they get worse, so you can address it. But on the down side, this can mean that sometimes that person may be more likely to feel bullied even when that is not what’s happening.

Clearly, that’s not what happened in this case, but it seems to be a common question that arises in many of our courses.

So what can you do as a manager to protect all your staff, and your organisation? Here are a couple of things:

    1. Set very clear expectations and standards for all employees, but especially for managers as to what is appropriate behaviour.
    2. Train your managers in management! – skills like performance management, delivering feedback, supervision or mentoring skills, how to have difficult conversations, and managing workplace mental health, to name a few.
    3. Nurture a mentally healthy culture, a workplace where people are happy to be.
    4. Build good relationships with your staff. You want them to feel comfortable to talk to you early if an issue such as this arises, so you can step in and act quickly before it gets out of hand.
    5. Build the resilience and emotional stamina of your staff. Equip them with tools to stay strong, so that in the case a bully does appear, they are better able to cope, and take appropriate action.

There’s one last thing I want to mention in regards to this article and that is, the reference to a psychological condition as a ‘permanent disability’. There is a huge body of evidence in mental health that shows it does not have to be a permanent illness. It can be but it doesn’t have to be. The majority of people can and do recover, given the right support. I certainly hope the lady in this article does find the right help for her, although is seems than in her case, it’s going to be a tough road ahead.

Btw, we upskill managers on what to do and how to do it, and more, at our Workplace Mental Health Masterclass for Leaders course. Check it out and see if it’s for you

Read the original article here: http://finance.nine.com.au/2016/10/25/09/29/nsw-worker-wins-1-million-for-workplace-bullying

Author: Peter Diaz
Peter-Diaz-AuthorPeter 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.

Connect with Peter Diaz on:
Peter Diaz on Face Book Peter Diaz on LinkedIn

Mechanics-motor-bike

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

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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Let’s see:

Firstly, mental health problems happen in a context. That’s why people from lower economic backgrounds are more likely to be unwell. That’s why people under pressure tend to experience stress. That’s why staff without clear guidance and vision, falter.

Second, managers, whether we like it or not, we are in our team’s ‘public eye’. Our team members are watching us. And they watch for incongruencies, in what we say, what we do and how we respond to situations. It’s a bit like when parents who smoke tell kids ‘smoking is bad for you’. The kid registers ‘smoking has to be really good if you do it anyway!’. Most of this exchange is not happening at the tangible, physical level, it’s happening at the psychological, and mostly unconscious, level.

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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 profile

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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Unlocking-the-mysteries of workplace madness

Unlocking The Mysteries Of Workplace Madness – Part 1 of 3

I love talking about mental health at work. In our Mental Health First Aid courses, I especially love talking to people about tips and strategies for dealing with a mental health emergency. So when I thought about interviewing Mary O’Hagan, I knew I had to make it happen! Mary brings a distinct flavor to mental illness or, as she likes to call it, ‘madness’. Her approach is easily aligned with the way we view mental health here at the Workplace Mental Health Institute (former Mental Health Recovery Institute). That’s why I feel that, if we are to unlock the mysteries of workplace madness, we need to listen to Mary.

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For those of you who know Mary, she needs no introduction. She is a former National Mental Health Commissioner, author, and someone I consider a giant in the field of Mental Health Recovery. I have the utmost respect for Mary’s opinion and it’s an opinion the mental health field needs.

What you’ll get in this Part 1:

  • Hear a little of Mary’s fascinating journey
  • When it’s important you don’t listen to mental health experts
  • Get some real tips on mental health recovery at work
  • When madness is ok and why it deserves respect
  • What madness has to contribute to the workplace
  • How a mental illness can increase resilience at work
  • How the workplace can help people feel better

You can watch Part 1 of this interview here on Workplace Mental Health Institute on VIMEO also

We’ll be releasing Part 2 in a couple of days. Talk soon

Author: Peter Diaz
Peter Diaz profile

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.

Connect with Peter Diaz on:
Facebook-logo Podcast Icon LinkedIN-logo