Employee wellbeing is closely tied to productivity and thus the bottom line.
As a strategic imperative, it must therefore be instilled through corporate culture, which is owned and led from the top, from the Board down.
But in times of isolation, where a sense of culture becomes much more remote and intangible, this isn’t achievable. Instead, individual line managers must step up to support their teams and take responsibility for their wellbeing.
However, this puts considerable onus on the line manager – many of whom are not equipped to identify and deal with issues such as anxiety or mental health issues.
Capita's Human to Hybrid research confirmed the challenge, with 56% of HR leaders citing a lack of mental health training across the workforce.
This challenge is exacerbated in the COVID-19 world, where there is no opportunity to meet in person: the impersonal nature of digital communications makes it challenging to manage remote workers on a day-to-day basis, never mind then identify a problem or get employees to open up.
Fig 3. Capacity of line managers to identify early warning signs of poor mental health.
How well equipped are line managers in your organisation to identify the early warning signs of poor mental health?
Organisations can mitigate this risk by offering training for people managers that covers:
The advantage is that much of this training can itself be delivered remotely using a combination of webinars and online courses, meaning businesses can deploy now and see immediate benefits.
