Should employers be taking more responsibility for employees’ mental health?

According to a survey by mental health organisation TalkOut, published in September 2020, 56% of UK workers have not received any mental health support or advice from their employer since the height of the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic in March. With the United Nations policy brief Covid-19 and mental health, published in May 2020, painting a worrying picture with its fears that we are on a brink of a mental health crisis, should employers be taking more responsibility in keeping a healthy-minded workforce?

Brendan Street, head of emotional wellbeing at Nuffield Health, says: “In terms of employers providing support to employees, it’s a no-brainer because employees are waiting around to get help [from NHS services] because there are no quick access times right now. The knock-on effect is depressed and anxious employees who are not performing and delivering, with lower levels of  productivity and absenteeism; and if they don’t see their mental health supported, increasingly with millennials in particular, they will leave anyway, because it’s not seen as a perk.”

Open-culture organisations

Before the Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, organisations may well have shied away from the topic of mental health, but since, there is no escaping the fact that people are suffering from huge pressures on their mental health and this is a topic that should be openly discussed. More than a third (35%) of respondents in Talkout’s research said their mental health is worse now compared to before the pandemic.

Rebecca Smith, psychotherapist and clinical director at mental wellbeing provider Peachy Mind, says: “I think it’s difficult without having the core culture where employees can be open about their mental wellbeing. There is still an issue around that and I think we need to be considerate of when people are worried about these things; like losing jobs, for example, and do [employers] actually have the tools that enable people to be honest? There are measurement tools out there but if [they have] not got the culture and environment where people can be open and honest, how are they going to get accurate data?”

Highlight available support 

Employers should be making sure all resources are easily accessible and are communicated to employees, including making sure that staff are aware which services that were previously available in person, are now available online. It may no longer be a case of stopping by the desk of one of the mental health first aiders, so what are the alternative methods of communication; email or video call?

Ensuring all employees have good mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond should be a priority among organisations, says Street. “In terms of support that should be offered, it should be seen as an enhancement for those that are mentally fit during Covid; employees might want to know what to keep doing in terms of prevention,” he says.

“There are also interventions of people that are starting to feel the impact of Covid in terms of stress. Mental health support can help them to manage that so they don’t get ill, and then there are people who are experiencing mental health issues and need face-to-face treatment. So that’s when [they] get into cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). There was a lot of evidence pre-Covid that [employers] get the best return on investment if [they] intervene at the enhancement stage and that will be the same for post-Covid.”

Starting the conversation 

It is easy to overlook signs that an employee is struggling in an office environment, and even more difficult when the best part of the workforce is hidden at home.

Christine Husbands, managing director at Red Arc, suggests following guidance from the Samaritans when it comes to checking on how people are feeling. “The Samaritans recommend asking twice,” she says. “Not to say ‘are you ok?’ and people say ‘yes’, but then to ask ‘are you sure?’ and say ‘I just mentioned the other day you’ve not been yourself, I’m still a bit concerned’. Sometimes it’s the second question where people open up but employers seem to be a bit concerned about asking the question because they don’t really know what to do with the answer. It’s about not being scared to ask a question; sometimes an employee just needs someone to notice and that’s a big help in itself.”

Recognising new Covid-related issues

There is no escaping that Covid-19 has caused myriad problems and the negative impact on employees’ health is just one of the escalating issues. Employees on furlough, the fear of redundancy, and the long-term prognosis of the job market, are all catalysts of anxiety and stress.

“Redundancy is emotionally difficult, as well as the stress and anxiety surrounding coming out of the very strict lockdown, and these feelings will last a long time,” says Peachy Minds’ Smith. “People are very anxious about [the impact of Covid-19] so all the walls have been put up. Employees need reassurance, there is so much social uncertainty: ‘Will we be able to afford living here?’, ‘Will I get made redundant?’, ‘When will it be normal again and what will the normal look like?’  It’s just a massive layer of additional worry.”

Even with the lockdown becoming less restrictive, there is still a lot of uncertainty around returning to an office space, and organisations should take responsibility in reassuring employees that it is safe to return to this environment, says Natalie Rogers, HR director at Unum. “At Unum, we have a whole playbook of information about what to expect coming back into the office and what was going to be different.We really set out to individuals as clearly as we could what they can expect, and how to deal with those anxieties about coming into the workplace and how safe it was.”

Are employees getting the help they need?

Mental health services are not always the easiest to measure. Tracking such a sensitive subject is up to the discretion of the employee but employers can get a rough idea whether the services they are providing are beneficial by sending out pulse surveys, tracking how often a service is used and getting feedback from line managers about their teams.

Nuffield Health has been sending out pulse surveys every two weeks to gauge how its employees are feeling. “We keep it really simple: three questions each time and the questions change,” says Street. “Sometimes they are specifically about mental health, sometimes they are about mental health connected to finances and sometimes to social connectivity and sometimes we ask people to choose certain descriptors of their mood.”

Unum has also been using surveys to find out how its employees are feeling. “It is vital that employers are really tuned in to what their employees are feeling,” says Rogers. “Stress can appear physically, behaviourally or competently, and [we] can see the dip in the form of productivity, but it’s really difficult to identify the signs particularly from a distance. We’ve gained a lot of insights and feedback through surveys on how employees are feeling through pulse surveys. They encourage line managers to talk about wellbeing much more than just in the one-to-one conversations they’ve been having with their teams. Surveys should not be just about what people do but how they’re feeling, and what they experienced, it’s key.”

Many employers have increased their mental health support initiatives due to the pandemic, and that responsibility should continue to feature high on their employee wellbeing agenda well into the new year and beyond.