Speaker 1
Hello, my name is Avril Ivory, I’m a health psychologist and a psychotherapist, and I consult to vivo health. So you’re all very welcome today. And thank you for taking the time out to join us in this presentation on the positive impact of workplace mental health programs. So I want to look at four different sections today.
Firstly, why it’s important for organizations to have mental health workplace programs. Secondly, the benefits of investing in them. And then I also want to look at why psycho education is particularly important amongst leaders and managers and what they can do.
And then finally, vivo health has a mental health champion program which is basically a first aid program, and they recently did an evaluation on their program and I wanted to share the results of that evaluation. So we know that Ireland has a fairly high prevalence of mental health disorders. Unfortunately, we just don’t compare that favorably with other countries.
And in actual fact, one in four of us will between 20 and 25% of us will experience a mental health challenge across our lifetime. So basically, that means that for all of us, either a friend or a family member or ourselves will experience that challenge. Obviously, since the advent of the pandemic, the prevalence of mental health disorders has become more significant.
And we know that our mental health services have really, really been stretched and overloaded. So, unfortunately, the World Health Organization has said that the depression alone is expected to be the biggest cause of disease burden globally by 2030. And, you know, that is a very disappointing statistic.
And I think it’s really worth our while for all of us to stand back and to say, well, you know, how can that be the case supposedly we are becoming more advanced and more evolved as a civilization all the time with advancing technologies, and yet, our mental health, our psychological well being is becoming more and more impoverished. And I know this is, you know, a whole separate conversation.
But it is very relevant for all of us to look at the variables that might be contributing to this. And I suppose to decide within ourselves to vote with our feet and try and avoid this statistic becoming a reality.
And some of the variables I refer to there would be things like our overuse maybe of social media platforms, which we know they increase communication methods, but they don’t necessarily increase our connectedness. We know that our communities aren’t as cohesive as they were 1020 years ago.
And we know that we live in a culture of constant striving and constant mastery, which puts people under so much pressure. And we also know things like our food chain have changed has changed significantly and we’ve a lot more processed foods than we used to and all of these things have an impact on our psychological well being.
So understanding what is relevant in mental health and how we can improve mental health is incredibly important. So without good mental health, people simply can’t thrive in any area of their lives and particularly not in the workplace.
Speaker 1
And even before the pandemic began, research was indicating that there was already an increased level of work-related stress, of anxiety in the workplace, of depression in the workplace. And organisations can do really good work in stopping the direction that this is all going in. So let’s first of all look specifically at the impact of COVID in Ireland.
So the central statistics office every year does research on things like mental health and life satisfaction. And last year when they did their research, and nobody will be surprised with this, that 42% of the younger cohort 18 to 34 rated overall life satisfaction as low. And 25% of our older people rated life satisfaction as low.
And overall nearly 60% of participants said that they were negatively impacted by the pandemic. And all of you listening to this today will probably be able to relate to that. Everybody’s journey was individual, but for so many people it was an extraordinarily difficult time.
We don’t have statistics for 2022, yes, but we’re not sure that they will have improved significantly because I suppose we’re only coming out of a pandemic now to some extent. And also we’ve come out of the pandemic and gone straight into climate crisis and of course into a war in Europe.
And certainly it has been my experience that in clinic I’ve seen so many people during pandemic times who never had anxiety before or never suffered with mood problems, who during this time presented with anxiety and presented with lowered mood. These conditions have been triggered during this time.
And even at the current time I’m seeing a lot of health anxiety, I’m seeing a lot of social anxiety, and also maybe they had had a mental health disorder earlier over the years and they had done a journey.
Maybe they’d gone through an agency and done some psychotherapeutic work and had developed great toolboxes in coping because sometimes there’s incredible growth when we are faced with a mental health challenge, particularly if we do that journey with a professional. And people then have great toolboxes and can make brilliant recoveries. But I saw quite a few people relapse during COVID times.
So it’s undoubtedly that it’s going to take some time for many of us to recover from what has gone on. And so let’s look at what psychological well-being is. What is mental health?
So the World Health Organization has said that it’s a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, and is able to contribute to his or her community. So when we have good mental health, it allows us to think, to feel, and react in ways that really enable us to enjoy our lives.
And an awful lot of people are reporting that they’re not yet back to enjoying their lives in the same way. So it’s incredibly important that we create culture in our organizations where people can, you know, regain this sense of enjoyment and psychological well-being.
When we look at mental health more closely, we see that obviously it leads to so much suffering, as well as loss of life satisfaction.
Speaker 1
But also in an organizational context, it leads to decreased productivity, increased absenteeism, increased presenteeism, it can lead to high rates of staff turnover, and also it can lead to burnout and exhaustion.
So by investing in our mental health, we are helping people not just to enjoy their lives more and to experience less suffering, but to work productively and contribute to our community and our society.
So, you know, it is suggested that up to 8% of the annual wage bill in most organisations is used up by absenteeism and presenteeism and that mental health issues account for 51% of all work-related cases of ill health and 55% of all days lost due to work related illness.
In the UK, research indicates that poor mental health costs in UK employers up to 45 billion per year and one of the things that we’re seeing more at the moment is presenteeism and presenteeism is where you have an employee at their desk either, you know, within the office or obviously with the hybrid model they might be at home.
So ostensibly they’re at work but actually they’re not producing in the same way because they are using so much energy struggling with their emotional well-being and this is estimated to cost three times more than sick leave. So presenteeism is a huge issue at the moment.
The other thing that I would say that I see constantly in organisations is that there’s still so much stigma around mental health even though it is so common and even though it can happen to any of us there’s still a level of judgment there that isn’t present for people when they are struggling with their physical health and it’s always been okay not to be okay.
I do think that there’s better conversation around mental health, you know, in the last two years than there has been so it’s a great time to build on that openness and transparency that has been emerging. It’s really important that people understand that mental health is never ever a failure, it’s never a weakness. Why somebody develops a mental health problem is complex.
I often describe it using what we call a fertile ground hypothesis. It’s various different variables coming together such as our genetics, epigenetics, the wiring in our brain, our experiences in utero, our attachment in infancy to the primary caregiver and then our experiences in childhood and then our life experiences.
You know, all of us will have challenges but some people have more challenges than others, maybe early bereavement, you know, job loss, relationship breakdown, all of the different things that can happen across the lifespan and you know different people will be affected in different ways depending how these variables play out.
So there are huge benefits for organizations for investing in mental health and there’s an increased overall satisfaction of their staff.
We see increased productivity, we see less burnout, we see a reduction in absenteeism and presenteeism and it’s estimated that for every pound sterling spent by employers on mental health interventions they get five pounds back in reduced absence, reduced presenteeism and staff turnover.
Speaker 1
We do know from the research however that early intervention is really important. It’s catching people early on before they have, you know, maybe developed a full-blown and serious mental health condition. The earlier we can create a culture in an organization where there is psycho-education and acceptance around mental health the better it is.
Research also indicates that employees are three to five times more likely to be creative and innovative if there is a good mental health program in a company and mental health is addressed. In FTSE 100 companies those with wellbeing programs show a higher than average shareholder return.
We also know that programs in companies will influence recruitment and retention of staff, particularly in recent times. Looking at that CSO statistic about that cohort 18 to 34 years of age and just how much they have been affected by the pandemic. And I have seen this myself within organizations. This is a group that is likely to move companies until they find the company that is right for them.
In other words, they are voting with their feet. They want to belong to a company that holds wellness as a core value and that has wellness embedded within the culture of the company. They want to be provided with information and know that they will be supported if something were to go wrong.
Another key benefit for a company is that it enhances the reputation of a company when there is a mental health program there. It sends a very clear message to employees and to potential employees that the company has indeed an interest in the psychological wellbeing of the staff.
And this is important considering we are living in the era of what the American psychologist, organizational psychologist Anthony Klotz called the great resignation, which of course is where people are making decisions to migrate to companies where they feel aligned with the values of that company.
And for many people, because of the impact of working from home and the threat to help them, the threat to society, their awareness of physical and psychological wellbeing has been enhanced and therefore it becomes something they really want in the company that they work for. So having a good company culture around mental health helps to prevent problems.
And we know that prevention is always better than cure. And that doesn’t matter whether it’s physical health or mental health, prevention is always best. And I love the quote from Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who I think only left us last year, but he said, there comes a point where we need to stop pulling, just pulling people out of the river.
We need to go upstream to find out why they are falling in. And I really like this quote because to me it says it all about prevention being better than cure. And it’s also important to understand that there is a direct link between mental health and physical health.
So if people are struggling with their psychological wellbeing, that actually predisposes them, particularly if it’s a chronic problem, to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke as well as various different autoimmune conditions.
Speaker 1
Because everybody has what’s called a stress diethesis. And a stress diethesis is a tendency to develop disease in one particular system. In other words, at a certain threshold of stress, and stress being where the demand exceeds our ability to cope, then we can be triggered into a condition.
Now that could be heart disease, some of it depends on our genetics, or it could be rheumatoid arthritis, or cirrhotic arthropody, or just as easily, it could be something like anxiety or depression. So in a lot of organisations I’ve worked in, I’ve realised that the understanding of that how intimately stress and mental health are connected, isn’t always acknowledged and isn’t always understood.
And there is such a direct relationship between high levels of stress and poor mental health. It’s actually a physiological link. It’s mediated through the hormone cortisol. So many of you may have done biology back in the day and where you’d know that the nervous system is in two parts, sympathetic and parasympathetic. So we can either be in fight or flight, or we can be in rest and digest. And when… the demand of our environment exceed our resources to cope. When we’re pressurized, as so many of us can be at different times in our lives and in our work careers, that the nervous system comes out of rest and digest and releases adrenaline in fight or flight. And that’s absolutely fine. It’s an adaptive function. It’s euphemistically, it’s the bear in the woods and mobilizes glucose reserves, gets us away from the bear in the woods. So it’s fine to release adrenaline. But if we are in a situation in our working lives or our home lives where that’s happening us habitually, then the pituitary hypothalamus in the brain says, you know, I can’t keep on telling you that you’re stressed. So I’m going to start secreting a different chemical and that’s called cortisol. And when we have cortisol coursing through our bloodstream, that has a lot of very negative health effects. And, you know, one of those effects is, first of all, it often knocks out our sleep patterns and we’re waking up three or four o’clock in the morning and we have difficulty getting back to sleep. But also the higher the level of cortisol, the it has an inverse relationship or the lower the level of neurotransmitters like or chemicals like serotonin and dopamine. And of course serotonin is our happy chemical and dopamine is a chemical that helps us concentrate. So high cortisol can, you know, eventually lead us down the road of poor physical and psychological wellbeing. So it’s really important that we’re not going around in a state of high cortisol. And it’s important that companies and particularly leaders and managers really understand this and that, you know, emphasis is given on helping people improve their toolkit, therefore their coping skills for psychological wellbeing. And that we, you know, have a culture of awareness and growth around this toolkit and these coping skills. And I also just wanted to highlight there before we look at managers presenteeism again because it’s definitely something we are seeing on the increase.
Speaker 1
Recent research showed that 21% of employees were more likely to work when feeling unwell from a mental health problem due to embarrassment or fear of being perceived as weak in some way. In one particular survey, 29% said it was much easier to take time off for a physical illness, you know, back pain or neck pain or some kind of a physical condition. They felt that that was much more acceptable.
And the net effect of that is that you have a proportion of people who are really suffering through the working day and they don’t want to ask for help.
And this means that somebody who might be struggling, say with depression or generalized anxiety disorder is, you know, using all of that energy to hide what they’re experiencing and they’re not reaching out for help, therefore they remain undiagnosed and untreated.
And of course, this can have very serious consequences because if we’re struggling with our mental health, the sooner somebody feels they can acknowledge it, label it and reach out and get the help that they need and just get back on track, the better.
You know, and what I say to people is if you’ve been active on your tooth, you don’t think anything of, you know, reaching out to your dentist and asking for support with your tooth because you’re suffering. And it should be the same way with our psychological wellbeing. If we’re struggling and we’re really anxious or we’re really low on ourselves that we can reach out and get the help that we need.
So this brings me on to our next subject, which is the role of managers in mental health. Strong leadership and effective management are key factors in ensuring the best outcome for both the business and for employees. In fact, managers play a key role in reducing and managing stress amongst their staff.
Speaker 1
Gallup has estimated that 70% of an employee’s motivation is actually influenced by their manager and the relationships they have with their manager.
And yet we know that so many managers receive no training in understanding how stress worries affect mental health or in no training in how to manage their own mental health and many managers also report that they don’t feel equipped to have sensitive discussions and that they don’t that they themselves you know haven’t maybe done a journey around developing their own stress management mechanisms and kind of looking at their own level of emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence is becoming an issue that’s more and more salient in the workplace and it is something we briefly look at in the Zevo mental health champion program because we know from research that managers who have emotional intelligence and you know some level of emotional understanding and the ability to self-regulate in other words they are aware of the emotions they have they can regulate that the emotion the emotions that they have and they can understand their own stressors their own triggers and their own coping mechanisms that this makes them more effective in their leadership roles and we also know from research that managers who can genuinely empathize with their teams and have authentic communication skills are more effective in their roles so you know mental health trainings are important you know for everybody from peer support so all employees would be peer support people but also you know up to management right up to CEO level everybody can benefit and Zevo Health does an accredited mental health program and basically this is a first aid program and you equip employees with the tools to recognize mental health in the workplace and maybe to support people who are actually struggling themselves and during the mental health champion training participants gain an understanding of mental health difficulties they learn how to identify and support people who are in distress or in crisis they also learn how to help be part of the movement to de-stigmatize mental health issues and they also gain skills in understanding their own emotions and practicing self-care it’s an interactive workshop and it requires participants to actively listen learn and participate and I’ve been involved as a consultant in offering this program over the last two and a half years really with Zevo Health and it’s a wonderful training to be involved in because there’s so much positive discussion that emerges from working with teams in organizations as we work through the different aspects of the training because I suppose the key aspects would be helping staff to identify signs and symptoms of the most common mental health issues and also helping them to know when people just need to chat and to be listened to or when actually it’s appropriate to encourage somebody to engage maybe some professional help and it also trains mental health champions right across the organization from new hires to managers to the HR department to right up to the CEO.
Speaker 1
It helps participants to understand what good mental health looks like and what poor mental health looks like and what the continuum of mental health is. It helps participants to understand why the same stressor can happen to people, and one goes on to develop anxiety or depression, and the other person just bounces back, which of course is the definition of resilience.
And it also helps to promote a culture of wellness in an organization, a culture where there is an emphasis on positive coping skills and on resilience.
It helps address communication skills, listening skills, you know, some people say that listening is almost becoming a dying art, particularly after the pandemic, I find in organizations and with clients, everybody has their story about how they got through the last couple of years, and everybody wants to chat and tell their story, but then who is listening.
So, you know, training people to listen and to listen in a way where listening isn’t passive, but it’s an active is fantastic. So it places quite an emphasis on good listening skills and also things like authenticity and empathy which we know are very important. And, and it looks also at various different scenarios.
If you were to come across a colleague who had, you know, heightened anxiety or was having panic attacks or in worst case scenario, if you were working with somebody, and you realize that they were so low that they were actually having suicidal ideation. How would you start a conversation with them, what would you say and what would you do.
And obviously this is a skill set that we hope nobody’s ever going to need but it’s like preparing for the worst and always hoping for the best. We also address the importance of self care, and also encouraging, you know, anybody who’s, who’s doing the training that if they themselves are struggling, that they would reach out and get that the help that they themselves need.
And we did a an evaluation of the evil health mental health champion training, not so long ago, and I have to say the results were so promising. It showed that the mental health champion program was effective.
Speaker 2
in significantly improving mental health knowledge amongst trainees, significantly improving confidence in being able to support the mental health of others, significantly improving the capability of trainees to
Speaker 1
look after their own mental health. And also there was great evidence of a significant increase in mental health knowledge and behavior change amongst the participants. And 98% rated the course as excellent. That’s the Mental Health Champion Training. So I’m going to leave that with you today, but I’m really hoping that we will see many of your organizations on our program.
And I look forward to myself to seeing you there, hopefully in the future. Okay, many thanks.
