Managing and Mental Health

 

Your duty of care when you’re managing others is your legal responsibility to ensure your workers’ safety and health at work. This includes their mental health.

 

As a manager or supervisor, there’s a great deal you can do to provide this. Your workers are the most valuable resource of all. The way you treat them will impact on their wellbeing (and your own).

 

 

You can minimise the impact of stress on your team by:

 

 

 

LEADING BY EXAMPLE

Being an approachable and understanding manager will make your job much easier. If workers feel comfortable talking to you, asking your advice and feel you respect and value them, you will have gone a long way to lead by example.

 

 

Actively involving your team in decisions that directly affect them, in the workplace or their jobs goals and tasks. Involving workers in problem-solving and decision-making fosters trust and cooperation in your team.

 

 

Getting to know the workers in your team, asking them about their families and interests, noticing when there’s a change in behaviour or when something seems to be worrying them, acknowledging a job well done, encouraging learning from mistakes, letting them know you are available if they need to talk to you. These are some of the ways in which you show your workers that they are important and that you support them.

 

 

It takes courage to be a leader when people in your team are dealing with challenges in their lives. Relationship breakdowns, sick children, injury, illness and accidents, frail parents, death and suicide are not easy matters. Your team will look to you to show courage in these situations. They will be able to get back to work more easily if you show them support and understanding. Not only to one team member, but to them all.

 

 

Distress is infectious. Having a leader who can support the team and help maintain normal routines when one of the team is struggling or when there are changes in the workplace that cause stress, will help everyone feel better. Showing courage and faith in your team’s ability to deal with these challenges will give you credibility as a leader.

 

Here’s more on courage when life is difficult.

 

Celebrating your team’s success in finishing a job, meeting a deadline or production goals is a great way to build your team’s confidence and the sense of achievement.

FOSTERING AN INCLUSIVE WORKPLACE

Your workers do not have to tell you if they have a mental health problem unless it affects their ability to perform their job. However, if you foster a trusting and inclusive team, your workers will be more likely to tell you and you will have a better understanding of what they need and what you can do to support them and other members of your team.

 

You can build an inclusive team by:

• Being a champion who demonstrates respect and supports each individual’s strengths and needs;
• Acknowledging challenges as they arise and your team’s ability to deal with them together
• Encouraging your team to stay mentally healthy with strategies for this at pre starts;
• Challenging myths about mental health at meetings and pre starts and with information in the workplace;
• Treating mental health problems like any other illness (broken head instead of broken leg);
• Providing workers with the Employee Assistance Program information & how to access it
• Promoting flexibility as much as possible;
• Encouraging workers to maintain a healthy balance (physical, mental and social health) and modelling this yourself so they see you mean it.
• Addressing any workplace behaviour that is not appropriate and demonstrating that you will not tolerate it.

 

 

 

PROVIDING TRAINING AND AWARENESS OF MENTAL HEALTH

 

A lack of understanding stops workers from providing support to their workmates who have a mental health issue in the same way they would if they had a physical health problem. Providing awareness raising activities, information and training will build better understanding amongst your team.

 

Consider training in:

• Mental health awareness (e.g. Mental Health First Aid)
• Peer support programs
• Stress management
• Information sessions on mental health
• Events that highlight mental health (R U OK Day?, Mental Health Week, Suicide Prevention Day)
• Time and project management
• Suicide prevention training (e.g. Working Minds)

MANAGING PERFORMANCE

Mental health problems may contribute to a change or decline in a worker’s performance but it is important not to assume that a worker’s behaviour and actions are a result of his problem.
Focus on the behaviours that are affecting the worker’s ability to perform his role and not on his illness or problem. Be sensitive and recognise that talking about mental health problems is likely to be difficult for the worker and for you. Ask the worker what they need and what they think would help them to resolve any problem. Keep in touch with him without singling the worker out.

 

 

 

Learn more about mental health and wellbeing in workplaces by looking at this report ‘Workplace Wellness in Australia’ by Price Waterhouse Cooper and this e-Learning mental health training program ‘Mindful Employer’

 

 

Mindful Employer, e-Learning mental health training program Mindful Employer.