Severn Trent Services addresses its employees’ need for mental and emotional wellbeing support by offering access to specialist advice along with signposting to relevant resources.
The organisation, which is part of water and wastewater services supplier Severn Trent Water Group, employs 389 members of staff.
In terms of wellbeing support, it offers access to an employee assistance programme (EAP), which provides support for mental health, legal and financial issues. Through the programme, employees can be put in touch with relevant experts.
They can also access anonymous and confidential support, such as counselling, through a mental wellbeing app provided by Thrive. A cognitive behavioural therapy survey will identify any potential risk of mental health issues, and a specialist will then contact the employee with support. The app also offers Severn Trent Services’ employees advice on how to deal with any issues, such as sleep, workload and debts, and signposts to charities and resources.
Sally-Ann Betts, internal and external customer liaison lead, who deals with induction training for employee benefits and rewards explains that of the 145 employees who attended the introductory session to the app last year, 130 downloaded it and have continued to use it as of June.
“It’s a fully confidential type of support, which is what employees said they prefer,” she says. “We can see the number of people using the app as well as the most common risks that emerge. Knowing the reasoning for why they use the app allows us to offer additional support in-house, such as advice and signposting in the office for sleep issues, which was one of the trends that we noticed.”
Severn Trent Services decided to implement its mental health support in order to offer self-help opportunities to its employees on a day-to-day basis. It also wanted to address the increase in mental health concerns, the current climate and the cost-of-living crisis following raised concerns from staff across the business.
The organisation’s workforce comprises both office-based employees and field technicians, who tend to work by themselves, so its mental health support both now and during the Covid-19 pandemic was based on tackling the feeling of isolation. Then it ran social events on Microsoft Teams such as quizzes and takeaway nights, and over the past four years has ensured all managers are mental health awareness trained and has instilled a mental health first aider in every team.
Severn Trent Services encourages staff in need to contact any of the mental health first aiders, regardless of whether they are in their team or not, to try and remove any stigma, adds Betts.
“We also ran a men’s mental health session earlier this year with some experts, discussing issues such as suicide and the importance of physical checks to maintain their health, as well as one around women’s health,” she says. “These were made gender-specific so employees would be more inclined to take part. We’re additionally working with Thrive to try and identify field technicians in need of mental health support, as these staff are not always seen by everyone on a daily basis.”
