Creating an open culture in your business is one of the most effective ways to remove the stigma behind mental health, and it allows you to understand your staff and ensure you know exactly how they want their mental health to be managed.

Here are the four key steps to creating the open culture that will ensure you improve the management of mental health in your organisation;

1) Create awareness

Poor mental health, and mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety, are extremely common, with 20% of employees struggling in any given year.

However, most of your staff are unlikely to understand how to deal with their mental health, and many will even hide it from you because of the stigma surrounding it. 95% of employee’s calling in sick with stress give a different reason, with only 5% of UK employees say their organisation their organisation is helpful when dealing with mental health.

Being aware of the nature of mental health issues within your business can help you to take steps towards building an open culture and contribute to breaking down this stigma.

2) Listen to your staff

Creating an environment of trust in your organisation is the most
effective way of starting the conversation around mental health and creating an open environment. Your relationship with your staff with determines how much – if at all – they are willing to talk about their mental health and listening to what they have to say may be all your staff members need to feel comfortable.

Having actionable outcomes from conversations about mental health will only improve trust and communication, with seven out of ten employees saying they would use a confidential mental health helpline provided by their current employer if they were experiencing poor mental health.

3) Create a mental health policy

One of the most actionable ways you can create an open culture around mental
health in your organisation is by creating a mental health strategy. Just 28% of employees say their employer has a Wellbeing strategy in place, with just 32% believing their organisation provides no support for those experiencing poor mental health. Even more damning – only 5% of UK employees say their organisation is
helpful when dealing with mental health.

Wellness Action Plans gives your staff ownership of their own mental health, and the practical ways in which they can manage it. Creating a WAP also creates an open conversation between you are your staff to ensure you look after their mental health
in a productive and helpful way. By creating a mental health policy, you will create an open environment, one free of mental health stigma, with better performance, greater productivity and increased job satisfaction.

4) Introduce mental health training and support

Fewer than one in ten employees would confide in their employers if they were suffering from poor mental health, yet eight out of ten said they thought it would be useful if mental health training was given to managers and business leaders.

Improving both yours and your team’s knowledge surrounding mental health will empower them to properly look after their mental health and wellbeing.

Mental Health support may come in the form of Wellness Action Plans or software that is designed to combine data about the mental health of your staff to create an overall picture of mental health of your organisation. Lumien does this by analysing the cost and impact of mental health in your workplace and by giving you the tools to support your staff in the long term.