An audit is an essential step in checking that you have the right measures in place for creating a mentally healthy, happy and productive workforce. By auditing your current mental health and wellbeing provision, you can identify potential issues and implement strategies for improvement to support employee wellness. In the UK employers are legally required to protect their employees' mental health, and regular mental health audits can help ensure that you meet this obligation.
We have recently launched our new mental health workplace audit tool. This complimentary resource acts as an online scorecard, rating your ability to support your employees’ wellbeing in the workplace.
To receive a unique score for your business, you must answer 15 questions on various areas of employee mental health and wellbeing. The mental health audit tool will give you an overall score, as well as more specific scores on three key areas:
- culture and leadership
- manager skills and knowledge
- employee support and training
In addition to scoring your current performance, you’ll instantly receive recommendations on how to improve your workplace wellness and wellbeing provision.
Take our Online Mental Health in the Workplace Audit now.
Employers can’t be complacent about their current mental health provision
CV library found that 74% of UK workers want their employers to do more to promote self-care practices that benefit mental health, which might surprise businesses who feel that they’ve already got sufficient mental health measures in place to look after their staff.
Headspace’s Workforce Attitudes Toward Mental Health survey reported that 94% of CEOs feel that they’re already doing enough for their workforce’s mental health yet, tellingly, only 67% of employees feel the same way.
In fact, the report even found a disparity in how much mental health support is provided by employers, with 88% of CEO’s saying that they offer mental health support. In comparison, only 61% of employees say the same. A poll from Safety & Health Practitioner had similar findings, noting that 55% of UK workers said their workplace either didn’t have mental health policies for helping employees (or they were unaware of any available mental health support).
It’s therefore prudent for HR departments and senior leadership to regularly audit their mental health measures to ensure that they meet employees’ wellness needs.
Looking after your employees’ mental health and wellbeing is a smart investment
Mental health issues such as anxiety, stress and depression can be huge drains on the productivity of UK businesses. In 2022, Deloitte found that ill-mental health costs UK employers £56 billion a year. Their report also found that employers see a return of £5.30 on average for every £1 spent on workplace wellbeing. Despite this, research from the CIPD found that only 50% of employers have a formal wellbeing strategy.
It is vitally important that employers can spot signs of poor mental health such as stress, anxiety and burnout, as recent figures from the wellbeing chatbot Wysa show that half of the UK workforce would not speak to a healthcare professional about their mental health. Their research also revealed that only 1 in ten employees feel comfortable asking for time off for ill-mental health.
Start planning your workplace wellbeing strategy
Mental health audits are a great starting point for creating an employee wellbeing strategy. Such strategies prioritise creating a mentally healthy workplace. This helps prevent organisations suffering from high staff turnover, absenteeism and many other costs associated with poor employee mental health.
Our mental health audit tool will help you better understand your current capability of dealing with employee mental health issues, such as workplace stress and burnout, as well as the overall mental health culture within your organisation. As part of assessing your workplace wellness provision, you will be asked a series of questions exploring your current employee mental health support offering.
Once you have completed our workplace mental health assessment tool questionnaire, you’ll receive a scorecard that rates your current provision and identifies areas for improvement. This may include improving communication channels, increasing buy-in from your senior leadership team, providing more mental health training such as Mental Health First Aid Training or Mental Health Training for Managers, or providing extra resources and support for staff members.
These recommendations serve as a starting point for writing or revising an employee wellbeing strategy that delivers for your workforce, supporting their needs as well as raising awareness of workplace mental health issues.
There is always room for improvement
There is no doubt that many UK employers improved their mental health and wellbeing support in response to the global pandemic, however the needs of your employees will always be in flux. For example, one in three employers don’t offer support for neurodiversity and two in three do not give any menopause support.
Auditing your mental health provision will ensure that your business can regularly improve your wellness and wellbeing support and meet your employees’ diverse and changing needs.
Benchmark your workplace mental health provision
We are passionate about improving mental health in the workplace. For the last decade, we have helped a wealth of businesses to develop their workplace wellbeing programmes, creating happier and healthier workplace environments. Our experience working with business leaders, HR professionals, managers and employees has gone into creating our mental health audit tool, giving you an actionable benchmark for developing your current employee wellbeing provision.
Our workplace mental health assessment tool acts as a meaningful springboard for you to develop and implement a plan to improve employees' mental health in the workplace.
Take our Online Mental Health in the Workplace Audit now.
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