Are companies actively promoting wellbeing within the workplace?

Are time constraints, lack of focus, insufficient personnel, or a lack of understanding common factors for not actively planning, promoting, and implementing wellbeing initiatives?

Employee wellbeing is a legal responsibility of Human Resources (HR). While not explicitly mandated as a separate legal requirement, it's encompassed within the broader duty of care employers have under health and safety legislation.

Employers have a legal obligation to ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of their employees. This includes providing a safe working environment, both physically and psychologically. Wellbeing in the workplace is as complex and individual as the employees of the company.

Being proactive as well as reactive is key. "Pre-aid" is more cost-effective than "first aid," meaning it works to the employer's advantage to implement and manage wellbeing in the workplace to retain staff and maintain worker capacity. Revenue lost in the UK through mental health issues runs into hundreds of billions. Reduced staff capabilities and numbers affect turnover, profit, and reputation.

Common issues within the workplace that are easily overlooked or missed include:

• Stress/burnout

• Anxiety/depression

• Lack of work-life balance

• Loneliness/isolation (especially for remote workers)

• Sedentary job roles

• Sleep deprivation/irregular shift patterns

• Lack of recognition/being overlooked for promotion

• Over-promotion

• An older workforce

Companies should take proactive steps to ensure they do not have any business practices that are not conducive to positive mental health. Rather than responding to poor mental health, the workplace should actively promote positive wellbeing. This could involve communicating a compelling vision, providing learning opportunities, creating meaningful work, and fostering a sense of shared purpose.

Mental health in the workplace is a complex topic that encompasses all elements of the employee lifecycle and touches on many aspects of effective HR management. A wellbeing strategy might include leadership actions, culture change, policy creation, staff and management training, and more. It may not be possible to tackle everything at once, so sensible prioritisation and concentrated focus will be needed.

Times are moving on from management cracking the whip and telling employees to "just get on with it, it was never like this in their day." But it also takes more than a few plants scattered around the office and a jar of biscuits or a fruit bowl left in the staff canteen.

At Re-think Who You Are, the focus is on the uniqueness of each company. With variation in industry and personnel, there is no ‘one glove fits all’ solution. Addressing these complex challenges requires more than quick fixes; it's about enabling organisations to create environments where every employee can genuinely thrive. Across all tiers of management and staff, at every level of the business, all staff are encouraged to input and create a culture that better suits their environment.