The Big Smoke’s Mental Health Awareness in the Workplace initiative
In the past decade we’ve seen a growing momentum concerning mental health awareness and experienced a tangible need for mental health awareness booming during this unprecedented time. Protecting and supporting our mental wellbeing is going to be central to us coping with and recovering from the pandemic. As a staggering 2 in 5 employees has reported experiencing poor mental health symptoms related to work in the last year, it is imperative businesses and line managers take immediate action to alleviate and ultimately improve their staff wellbeing.
With the psychological and social impacts likely to outlast the physical symptoms of the virus, the government and stakeholders have been implementing and increasing mental health support systems and strategies aimed at identifying and dealing with people’s mental health issues we are not experts in the field and we are not qualified in personally dealing with mental health problems, we've used our public presence to gather and distribute publicly available resources in order to assemble it together to provide a jumping-off point where people can start their learning journey.
Despite the increase in help and support available for people who suffer from poor mental health, a staggering percentage of the population still struggles to talk openly about it with their managers, colleagues, friends or family members as they are afraid it will jeopardize their relationships, compromise their position at work or cause discrimination. It can also be difficult to navigate the proliferating number of websites and blogs to deepen our knowledge on the topic or to find help and support online.
The Big Smoke Events partnered with MIND charity during mental health awareness month and the feedback was amazing. Our Charity Quiz Night raised over £2000 for the cause and spread a message of kindness - it also allowed us to dip our toes in a topic we are passionate about and have been since then pondering over it extensively
In light of that, we wanted to go a bit further than a one-off charity night, so The Big Smoke is starting our Addressing Mental Health in the Workplace initiative over the next few months. We will be delivering a whitepaper aimed at educating employers and employees on the broad topic of mental health and how it can be improved in a remote or physical work environment (which you can find here). We will also include links to online helplines, organizations and strategy plans people can take in and implement in their companies’ health safety plans to better theirs and their employees’ mental health. We will also be diving into the world of podcasts and webinars, where we will be hosting discussions with experts that can add value and insight into the topic of mental wellbeing. Watch this space on updates about those.
We believe education about the importance of supporting mental health and the organizations available to manage it should be easily retrievable and accessible to everyone. Our goal is to broaden awareness on the topic of mental health and fight the stigma surrounding it by inspiring employers and employees through the work of experts in thier fields and people who live and thrive whatever their mental health status.