Mental Health Awareness Week 2021 : 10th - 16th May

Employment expert, Beth Leng, explores the importance that this event holds when reflecting on the last year and looking to the future.

It is Mental Health Awareness Week 2021. The theme this year is Nature.

The organisers have cited two goals for this year’s event:

  • to inspire more people to connect with nature in new ways, noting the positive impact experience of nature and the outdoors can have on everyone’s mental health; and
  • to convince decision makers at all levels that access to and quality of nature is a mental health and social justice issue as well as an environmental one.

For employers, managers and HR teams who have spent the last year battling to support their staff through the practical and emotional challenges of the pandemic, this year’s event will take on extra significance. Factors such as: health concerns; remote working; furlough (a term unknown to most of us a year ago); redundancies; and layoffs, have all had a negative impact on workers’ mental health. Astute employers realised fairly early on in the first lockdown that lunchtime Teams/Zoom meetings, training sessions timed to coincide with family mealtimes and remote checks-ins, were making the situation worse not better. People needed to get outside and away from a screen.

Mental Health Awareness Week presents an opportunity for businesses to reflect on what went well and what could be improved in terms of managing mental health at work throughout the pandemic. It will also give businesses an opportunity to consider the impact their return to office working plans will have on the mental health of their staff. New risk assessments will inevitably follow.

As a nation, over the last year we have come to value the outdoors more than ever before. For many, Lockdown 3 was the hardest because the weather prevented people from venturing out in the way they had last spring/summer. Part of the attraction of the lockdown puppy craze was the way in which it forced us to don a jacket and get outside even on the darkest days when we would much rather pull the duvet over our heads.

All those briefing from the, now famous, Downing Street podiums have been at pains to stress the importance of outdoor exercise and fresh air during even the most restricted periods of the lockdown.

Practical Steps

Assuming most employers will struggle to operate en plein air or allow their entire workforce to bring their lockdown puppies to work, what practical things can employers do to embrace nature in promoting good mental health as they seek to gradually bring their staff back into the office next months and beyond?

  • Communication and Conversation: the charity MIND talks at length about the culture of fear and silence surrounding mental health. Similarly, the organisers of Mental Health Awareness Week describe “open, authentic conversations about mental health in the workplace” as “an essential building block” for workplace mental health. Workers will be anxious coming back to work and a dialogue recognising that anxiety and apprehension is essential.
  • Walk and Talk: the lockdown social distancing guidelines have prevented most of us from being able to hold meetings, catch ups and check ins around a boardroom table. As a result, many employers have started to embrace the value of managers and their teams getting outside and conducting check ins on the go (on foot not driving!).
  • Breaks: often the subject of dry legal and technical debate, rest breaks need to be exactly that – a break! Encouraging staff not to eat at their desks or in soulless, airless breakout rooms will help. Supporting local shops and businesses that have struggled so much during the lockdown will have a double benefit.
  • Space: not every employer will have the ability to create their very own Kew Gardens Glasshouse within their offices but consider what can be done to improve workplace settings and communal areas. Fresh air is vital in the fight against the virus but also in promoting better mental health.
  • Publicising schemes to promote positive mental health: cycle to work schemes, health club memberships, Employee Assistance Programmes are often contained within a handbook but how often are they highlighted at a strategic level?
  • Mental Health Champions: larger employers will already have such roles but even smaller employers may consider appointing someone at a strategic level to oversee such issues in order to help maintain a focus.
  • Social Responsibility Programmes: to what extent do these programmes allow workers to participate and give back to their communities whilst also supporting their own mental health.

The statutory and tortious duties on employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of all their employees at work have been rehearsed at length over the years. However, this year we have lived and breathed these challenges more than ever before. As workers return to the workplace, these challenges will continue. Awareness, spotting the signs and then acting on any concerns are the keys to success in promoting better mental health. 

Contact Beth Leng

Use this form to contact Beth Leng directly with details of your enquiry. It costs nothing to make an enquiry and it is entirely confidential.

Alternatively, email beth.leng@salaw.com or call 01727 798046.

See our privacy notice to find out how we use and protect your data.

Name & Email
Message
Read the latest Employment Views & Insights
They seek to understand their clients and advise accordingly to achieve the outcomes that they require for their business needs.
Chambers and Partners
SA Law Employment Laptop
Views & Insights
What Next for Wilko Employees?

With their employer in administration, Wilko job holders could be facing a range of possible outcomes.

Read More
Stained glass window Employment SA Law
Views & Insights
The Great Unretirement and How Your Business Can Benefit

Why are retirees returning to work and what does it mean for you as an employer?

Read More
SA Law Employment Laptop
Views & Insights
Will UK SME’s be Impacted by EU Gig Economy Law Reforms?

After it was recently announced that a new law will be created to help millions of gig workers gain the status and rights of an employee, Gita Patel was…

Read More
SA Law Employment Laptop
Views & Insights
The 8 Future Employment Trends

New Flexible Working RulesOnce the new rules are implemented, employees will have the right to request flexible working from day one of their employment,…

Read More
Stained glass window Employment SA Law
Views & Insights
Why Did Major Firms Get Caught Not Paying The National Minimum Wage?

After more than 200 companies were outed by the government for failing to pay staff the minimum wage, Gita Patel was asked to comment on how…

Read More
As there is so much expertise on offer from SA Law they can provide a legal expert on all areas so that it can be handled under one roof.
Legal 500
SA Law Employment Laptop
Views & Insights
Video Guides on Data Protection and Direct Marketing

Find the new bitesize video guides about data protection and direct marketing launched by the Information Commissioner's Office here.

Read More
SA Law Employment Laptop
Views & Insights
New Employment Protections at Work for Parents and Unpaid Carers Given Royal Assent

Parents and carers will be provided with additional protections at work, covering leave entitlement and redundancy rules, as a result of three bills which…

Read More
Stained glass window Employment SA Law
Views & Insights
This Week’s Fine Imposed on Facebook Data

In a recently written article published in The Legal Diary, Christine Caffrey was asked to comment on the news of Facebook being fined €1.2bn…

Read More
Stained glass window Employment SA Law
Views & Insights
Napping at Work

Time to embrace the power of the power nap?

Read More
They are knowledgeable, with a commercial mindset, but also down to earth and friendly so it is easy to be very honest with them.
Chambers and Partners