Workplace Mental Health - all you need to know (for now) | Tom Oxley | TEDxNorwichED

What is it like to work when you work, study somewhere else, are busy? Everyone is asked to do more with less hands up, who gets their work email on a device at home, hands up, who sleeps in the same room as their device, hands up, who works. evenings and weekends only to work more the next day, hands up, who sometimes wakes up at night, thinks about work, can't disconnect, talks on the phone before his family in the morning, ah yes, the first signs of stress, okay, sorry to tell you. hands up who is so busy that they eat breakfast in the bathroom not only my brother-in-law works so that's reassuring but most of the things I talked about are communist the new norm before leaving the house in the morning our backpack is half full, It is no surprise then that between a third and half of us experience some form of stress, anxiety and depression during our working lives; those conditions are common and are responsible for 30% more absences than anything else, including musculoskeletal and physical industry in injuries 30% more and yet we struggle what we struggle with at CI review

workplace

s and how they support or not to people in

mental

health

and I interviewed more than 170 people and analyzed the information of 15,000 respondents and a Mental

health

is complex, but I

know

people who have poor

mental

health: they want to be at work in general and have a hard time doing so .

When they are at work, they have difficulty concentrating, communicating, juggling tasks, and sometimes get cranky. with customers and colleagues but they can't talk to their manager the manager doesn't

know

how to have a conversation the employee doesn't know if the manager is going to support them or stigmatize them or say well, we're all stressing out their colleague or managing them outside the organization to that our employee who wants to be at work doesn't know the support options can't have a conversation about it, they feel a significant stigma sometimes from the organization, sometimes from themselves and it just continues to resonate.

They don't take the time off they

need

or, if they do, they give a different reason for their absence and this is one of the reasons because we simply don't talk enough about mental health in our

workplace

s past the breaking point. Are we getting to this right? I thought we were all supposed to be resilient these days in the workplace. We're supposed to have Brazilians. How is resilience achieved? Well, you should have a good work-life balance. That is first. Okay, life, life. The field of flowers I jump through to and from work, if your life is anything like my life, contains things like separation, pain, and dental bills, plus peas getting stuck in your child's nostrils, and gas. exhaust pipes that fall off your car during the day. after the MOT, but we soldiers, with my backpack now three-quarters full, were taught to do it and we go to work and when we shouldn't be there, it's called presenteeism and presenteeism costs the workplace 1, 8 times more than absenteeism being away, but we didn't even get that right because we went in and told our manager, I think you might be having problems, it might be stress, anxiety, depression, so they're always fine, I think well, You

need

to go see your doctor, so let's go. to the doctor and we say hello I'm suffering a lot I'm losing sleep I can't talk to my manager I'm having breakfast in the bathroom and the doctor says well if we're in this country are you going to go mmm, that's interesting, I'm going to sign you off for two weeks, it's the first response from the NHS, okay, it's well-intentioned and I get it, and sometimes time off work is a really good thing and seeing our doctor is a good thing, but it's not the first place for that conversation , it took an employment lawyer in King's Lynn in Norfolk 28 seconds to be fired from work after entering the consultation room, not the first place for that, so you leave the consultation with a label with a diagnosis and you are staring at a pack of pills and TV during the day and it's really scary.

I've been there and if we're so quick to disconnect people, we need to have these conversations in the workplace instead of disconnecting and let me tell you. about disengaging and I know it illustrates the business case for this so I interviewed someone called Nick who was a senior manager at a global firm who consistently exceeded expectations in appraisals because there are appraisals remember to get more money we have to do more work than we should do at a different point. but anyway, Nick's mom Nick died, then he went on compassionate leave for two or three days and came back to the organization and tried to work out a flexible schedule, work more during the week, have a little more time off on Fridays. and his manager. he said no based on that and I quote everyone will love him Nick is a lovely good guy a really lovely guy and he really did it but of course you know he couldn't talk to his manager they had a fight and he went to the doctor who treated him . a lot more time off, but this was an illness and he disconnected and never returned to the organization properly.

Unions getting involved cost a lot of money and was completely avoidable. Sally's story. Sally is or sells. Her father died while she was again working for an international charity. “You have a successful manager and her manager,” Sally said. I don't think you're right. I think you need more free time. I think you know we can work from home a little bit and a gradual return. You might be surprised that Sally. she still works for that organisation, she is still senior, she is doing well and she is an employer advocate, so if the global company Nick worked for had acted as a charity they would have saved many thousands of pounds, so, What should we leaders do? master project managers, everywhere you go, you need to talk about mental health in the workplace when you speak, other people listen, okay, the conversation, positive language, cascades through an organization, you don't make more people sick by talk about mental health you give. them the opportunity to seek help sooner remember Nick remember Sally leaders who talk about mental health universally earn respect the same with managers managers you need to talk about mental health in the workplace and you need to train managers train and train them to spot the signs and symptoms know what to say know when to say it know where to shut up know when to listen know how to have a human conversation if you are a manager use this rule of thumb be the manager you would like to have if you were experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, human resources, occupational health.

I can, I can pretty much guarantee that your schools' and workplaces' policies on stress, anxiety, depression, or absence, and that sort of thing are probably overly long and full of self-serving jargon, and so is absence. The procedure is correct, when someone calls in sick that first day, as a golden conversation for a dialogue about mental health, who listens, who writes this, where they go, who offers support and this is the same for your people. You've got it, offering support to your people, therapy is a fantastic thing, but through the NHS it will take you eight weeks, three months, six therapy lessons, £300, what's that compared to a lot of free time and switching off is evil? your therapy, the other thing we do with people when they join a workplace is we teach them how to lift a box, which is great and thank you for that, but why don't we talk to them about how to have a conversation with a colleague? okay call it when they're fighting so if you're out there and you see someone struggling then say something say how are you my cup of tea if you think you're struggling you should say something this isn't just one time and finished conversation it's just a sign on the back of the bathroom door it's a camp it's a cultural change and it takes time okay, but the wonderful thing is that everyone can do this well what you need is a tray of sandwiches and a pack of mail -note and a group of people who have been free while working for you, okay, they will give you all the information you need, okay, you could, you could partner with a charity, like a conscious employer, if you want.

Hire a consultant if you have to, but you should really be listening, making adjustments, changes, and writing this down. The Health and Safety Executive I hope is already doing this, by the way, in the future we will talk about some of the things that have been mentioned today mindfulness meditation in meetings virtual reality glasses to train managers reporting illnesses and injuries in the workplace little robots that appear on your screen to ask you how you are psychotherapy through our mobile phone those things are being tested correctly now they are just around the corner but this is what you guys don't need to spend a lot of money on this, what they want from you is your commitment that you can talk confidently about mental health.

I told everyone, everyone has the resources to do this look around you this is mental health it's not just one in 103 we all have mental health all the time hands up who would like their employer to do more for mental health like employer, all of you What you have to do is give your people permission to speak confidently and be prepared to listen, thank you.