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Introducing the 6 standards

The Mental Health at Work Commitment is a set of actions, organised into 6 standards, that any organisation can follow to improve and support the mental health of their people.

Learn more about the standards below.

This standard has 4 parts:

  1.  Produce, implement and communicate a mental health at work plan, drawing from best practice and representing the views of employees across the organisation, specifically exploring feedback from people with mental health problems.

  2. Demonstrate senior ownership and drive board-level accountability, underpinned by a clear governance structure for reporting.

  3. Routinely monitor employee mental health and wellbeing using available data.

  4. Seek feedback from your employees and create clear opportunities to make improvements based on feedback.

 

This standard has 5 parts:

  1. Provide employees with good physical workplace conditions

  2. Create opportunities for employees to feed back when work design, culture and conditions are driving poor mental health.

  3. Address the impact that a range of activities have on employees, including organisational design and redesign, job design, recruitment, working patterns, email, ‘always-on’ culture, and work-related policies.

  4. Give permission to have work-life balance and to work flexibly and agile.

  5. Encourage openness during recruitment and throughout employment so appropriate support can be provided.

This standard has 3 parts:

  1. Proactively change the way people think and act about mental health by increasing awareness and challenging mental health stigma.

  2. Empower employees to champion mental health and positively role model in the workplace.

  3. Encourage open two-way conversations about mental health and highlight the support available at all stages of employment.

This standard has 4 parts:

  1.  Increase mental health literacy of all staff and provide opportunities for staff to learn about how to manage their own mental health.

  2. Ensure all staff are suitably prepared and educated to have effective conversations about mental health, and where to signpost for support, including in inductions for all new staff.

  3. Train your line managers in spotting and supporting all aspects of mental health in the workplace, and include regular refresher training.

  4. Support managers to think about employee mental health in all aspects of their role including during staff inductions, one-to-one meetings, team meetings and return-to-work meetings.

This standard has 3 parts:

  1. Raise awareness of the resources and tools available.

  2. Ensure provision of tailored in-house mental health support and signposting to clinical help, including but not limited to digital support, occupational health, employee assistance programmes, the NHS.

  3. Provide targeted support around key contributors of poor mental health, e.g. financial wellbeing.

This standard has 2 parts:

  1.  Identify and track key measures for internal and external reporting, including through the annual report and accounts.

  2. Measure organisational activity and impact using robust external frameworks, e.g. the Business in the Community Responsible Business Tracker and Mind’s Workplace Wellbeing Index.

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