World Mental Health Day was established on October 10,1992 by the World Federation for Mental Health. Since then, it has been observed every year with the aim of raising awareness in the global community about mental health and its importance.
This year’s official theme for World Mental Health Day is ‘It is Time to Prioritise Mental Health in the Workplace’. This theme underscores the critical importance of mental health in professional settings, and encourages employers to support their employees in maintaining good mental health.
What can organisations do?
- Check out the World Mental Health Day website for ways to engage with this year’s theme.
- Create a culture where talking about mental health is encouraged. You can do this by regularly sharing mental health resources, including questions about mental health and support needed in supervisions, and being open and honest about your own experiences.
- Trust individuals when they say they need support. Asking for help can be really daunting, so make sure your employees are not put off asking in the future by a negative response. Employees are far more likely to avoid asking for help when they do need it than they are to ask for help they don’t need. Be sympathetic, discuss what support can be put in place, and follow up to check if this is having an impact.
- Reflect on why we work in particular ways. Often, organisations are built a specific way simply because it’s what everybody else is doing, rather than because it’s what’s best for the organisation and their team. You may find your ways of working could be more flexible, and could prioritise staff mental health more than you think.
- Invest in staff wellbeing. Time and money costs can put employers off engaging in wellbeing initiatives, but healthy, happy staff are more productive, less likely to need time off due to sickness, and more likely to stay with an organisation long term, reducing costs associated with recruitment.’
