On November the 17th, the Laughology team brought together ideas and research from experts to understand how to create mentally healthy workplaces where people can flourish.
Mental health has never been more important. Developing sustainable, positive mental health strategies is one of the biggest challenges faced by organisations as the world adapts to post-pandemic ways of working and learning.
And while organisations are listening, are they taking the challenge seriously? To discuss this very important topic, we brought together some experts including:
- Dave McPartlin – Headteacher of Flakefleet Primary School and BBC Bitesize’s mental health advocate
- Sunita Hirani, former BBC Inclusion and Diversity Champion and Head of Supplier Diversity
- Sir Cary Cooper, Professor of Organizational Psychologyand Health at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester and President of CIPD.
We’ve put together the highlights below and look out for the Our Big Chat paper coming soon – this will contain further information and case studies about mental health strategies and how to create a mental wellbeing culture. You can find more about workplace strategies and downloads from the conference on our website.
First up was Dave McPartlin
Dave discussed the importance of creating an environment where people can speak up about mental illness, be themselves and flourish by playing to their strengths.
He asked the question, ‘Does your workplace encourage you to take risks and be your authentic self? Or are you putting on your ‘best face’, fearing to say or do anything unique or creative in case it has a negative impact on your career?’ If it’s the latter, then there may be a lack of psychological safety.
Psychological safety is the shared feeling that it’s safe to show one’s true self and to take risks in a group. It’s considered to be a crucial ingredient of any team performance and it’s up to leaders to create this. One area less focused on is the importance of psychological safety for employees to feel comfortable in raising mental health concerns at work.
The decision to reveal a personal mental health issue in the workplace is not an easy one. Whilst some may decide against it based on factors stemming from their own personality, beliefs or preferences, those who do want to share should not have to feel like their choice is risky.
To allow this, managers and leaders need to develop cultures where individuals feel supported to talk about mental health openly, without fear of judgement or other negative consequences—in other words, psychologically safe cultures.
Some key considerations Dave talked about were:
- Demonstrating trust in team members – for example, giving people more autonomy in their roles.
- Owning your mistakes, and encouraging team members to do the same. Avoid focusing on blame – no one deserves to be embarrassed or punished – but turn them into learning experiences that the whole group can benefit from. Laughology encourages this through creating time and space once a week to share ‘brilliant blunders’ and ‘amazing moments’. This is a chance to celebrate mistakes and share the brilliant moments you learnt from them. In doing so, everyone learns and mistakes are seen as learning experiences.
- Promoting honest, open feedback up and down (including positive feedback).
- Supporting team members in trying new approaches, even if it feels risky. Knowing they have your support will enable individuals to embrace their creativity and bring innovation to their work.
- Being open to all opinions by responding to ideas and suggestions in a way that shows people they’re valued and respected. Responding negatively or dismissively can lead a person to feel they are seen as incompetent, problematic or unaccepted.
- Having fun and encouraging people to try new things, creating a safe space for this to happen. Use humour and laughter as a way to do this.
- Making time for people to share ideas and encourage people to dream and think big. If you create a psychologically safe space, people will share their ideas and dreams. Supporting them to make it a reality promotes confidence, wellbeing and happiness.
Next, we heard from Sunita Hirani about the importance of inclusion and diversity for mental health and wellbeing
Sunita talked about inclusion starting at the top, with leaders setting the tone and acting as role models for people to follow and embrace. This begins with a wider understanding of the issues at hand, sharing stories and measuring inclusion and diversity at every part of the organisation.
Holding leaders accountable for ensuring diversity as a measure of success to inclusion is key as this makes change happen. When people see and experience a workplace where they feel they belong this improves mental health.
Sunita talked through the BBC’s commitments to diversity – some of these included:
- Expanding the pool of diverse senior leaders – having diverse succession pipelines for all Senior Leader (SL) roles. This includes targeted mapping of both internal and external talent.
- Investing in diverse leadership – introducing a high potential leadership programme with a significant diverse membership, reflecting our ambition to meet our 50:20:12 targets, and beyond.
- The biggest ever growth in entry-level opportunities – a plan to significantly boost apprentices at entry and mid-career level, and an expansion of the Assistant Commissioner Programme into other roles across the BBC.
- 4. Setting a gold standard for inclusion by creating an extensive programme of inclusive behaviour training to support an inclusive culture, supported by a pan-BBC campaign around seeking out and paying attention to new perspectives.
More commitments can be found on our website, where the BBC’s diversity and inclusion plan can be downloaded.
Sunita went on to talk about how corporate diversity and inclusion efforts should ensure a focus on inclusivity and accessibility to all people with disabilities and similar challenges. Mental health falls into that arena. It starts with leaders making workplaces more inclusive and putting it at the top of the agenda as part of an overall strategy, as well as making managers and leaders accountable.
And finally, our headline act was the brilliant Sir Professor Cary Cooper
Cary started with the sobering fact that UK productivity persistently remains at historically low levels. According to recent figures released by the Office for National Statistics, labour productivity fell at its fastest annual pace in five years from April to June, dropping by 0.5%.
Undoubtedly there is a connection to the mental health crisis, with 15.4 million working days lost to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2017/18. The two are inextricably linked. The more stressed and anxious we are, the less productive we become, and so begins a vicious circle.
So, is there a solution to the UK’s productivity puzzle? Sir Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Manchester Business School, firmly believes we need to address workplace wellbeing.
“Wellbeing isn’t about sushi and mindfulness at lunchtime, it’s about thinking strategically. How do we get more line managers with emotional intelligence? How do we make people feel they can work flexibly without feeling threatened? How do we get rid of the long hour’s culture? How do we control emails? If every business listened [to the argument for a wellbeing culture] it would raise our productivity dramatically.”
The physical workspace
For Cooper, the answers lie in addressing both the physical and psychological work environment. When considering the built environment, he cites biophilic design, well-thought-out lighting and social areas as vital considerations.
“Social space is critically important in the workplace today because so many people are linked to their screens. It’s important to design space so people are not isolated, but are near one another in a rational, team-building way.
If you want productivity, you need good ideas and creativity, but you can’t do that if a space is designed badly. Bringing nature into the office or its surroundings is also key. In this very stressful time, water features can be soothing too – it doesn’t have to be a big pond filled with fish.”
But a critical ingredient, says Cooper, is involving people in the decision-making around their physical work environment.
“Whatever you do, don’t impose on people. If you do that, they won’t accept it and you’ll have problems. They’ll think you don’t value their input and that extends to not valuing them. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution – for example if you’re an accounting firm doing detailed work on audit data, an open plan office might not be suitable.
Taking into account what people say is fundamental and you need to test the water every couple of years. Ask people what can be done to make this a nicer place to come to work.”
Line managers with emotional intelligence are key
The bottom line is we need to enhance wellbeing. We need more line managers with emotional intelligence. Providing training is key, you can learn people skills and managers should be held accountable for behaviours that promote this.
“To enhance wellbeing, we need more line managers with emotional intelligence or EQ. We need people who manage by praise and reward, and who realise when you have unrealistic workloads or unmanageable deadlines.
We promote people based on technical expertise, not their people skills and that’s wrong – there should be parity between the two. When you select someone for a managerial job it should be somebody who has the technical skills, but also the people skills. From shop floor to top floor, we need more line managers with EQ.”
Laughology case studies show a proven track record with top organisations, creating easy-to-use techniques to help managers develop skills that promote positive working cultures.
To find out about how Laughology can support mental wellbeing in your workplace, get in touch. We have a proven track record of evidence-based positive change and are always happy to share ideas and chat for free!
