Insights
Serious about staff wellbeing? Remove the stigma around mental health
Challenging mental health bias in the workplace
Talking to an audience of Stonehage Fleming employees as part of our inaugural Wellness Week this month, consulting psychologist, Jessica McGawley, had one central message for businesses: “The single most important thing when it comes to the wellbeing of your workforce is to take away the stigma around mental health”.
You don’t have to be suffering with your mental health to take good care of it, explained Jessica, founder of London-based Dallington, a psychological mentorship practice which supports young people with their mental health and wellbeing. “There doesn’t need to be a problem for you to invest in your mental health. Think of therapy or coaching as a health and fitness appointment for the mind” she said.
Removing stigma all starts, with transparency. Ideally, said Jessica, this should come from the top down. “As a leader in my own business, I have a policy to be open about my appointments. Be it a GP, personal trainer or psychotherapist appointment, I put it in my calendar which is open to all. If my team know I have no shame about disclosing this information, they see there is no stigma around mental health in our company culture”.
According to Jess, it is not only the responsibility of senior management to make changes. As co-workers, managers and leaders we all have a role to play in promoting wellbeing by addressing our own unconscious bias around mental health. A simple trick, she suggest is to train yourself to think about mental health as you would physical health. “Like physical health, your mental health can be good or bad at different times in your life, some suffer with it more than others; be as kind to a colleague suffering with poor mental health as you would someone with a broken leg or the flu”.
An increasingly familiar term in the corporate world, ‘wellbeing’ refers to the interconnected dimensions of our physical, social, emotional, and cognitive states. “We are generally at our optimum wellbeing when we have balance across all four areas” explained Jess. “You have a better chance of achieving that balance when stigma is removed and mental health is prioritised at work. Becoming educated and aware of mental health bias is an important first step”.
Jessica McGawley was speaking at the Stonehage Fleming Wellness Week
Read more about Wellness Week