For many of us, work is a significant part of our lives. It is where we spend much of our time, where we get our income and often where we make our friends. Having a fulfilling job can be good for your mental health and general wellbeing.
We all have times when life gets on top of us – sometimes that’s work-related, like deadlines or travel. Sometimes it’s something else – our health, our relationships, or our circumstances. This can affect our work performance.
There is a role for all employers, managers and employees in creating thriving work communities. It is important to address mental health at work for those with existing issues, for those at risk, and for the workforce as a whole.
Many businesses and organisations already have wellbeing policies in place. However, this can often end up being a ‘tick box’ exercise with free yoga sessions, quarterly social drinks, meet the management sessions, running clubs and quiet spaces. Although there is a place for all of these, they do not address the real issues of mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.
Guernsey Mind have developed a new initiative to enable workplaces to create an environment where everyone can thrive. The Workplace Partnership provides the opportunity to work together with Guernsey Mind and take a stand against mental health stigma and discrimination.
This isn’t a badge or a certificate, nor does it involve any testing or application forms; it’s about pledging to make realistic, suitable actions within organisations to minimise mental health discrimination in workplaces and the wider community.
Frequently Asked Questions
It is a public declaration that your organisation takes mental health seriously and wishes to partner with Guernsey Mind to step up to tackle mental health stigma and discrimination and support staff wellbeing. It will start with staff completing a survey. You will then build an action plan, using the data to target resources where they will make the most difference. Your organisation will be able to communicate, measure and record meaningful change to staff wellbeing.
No! It isn’t a quality mark or a charter and there is no test or audit process. It is about working together to commit to taking actions that are tangible and realistic and right for your organisation
1 in 6 workers are affected by mental health problems every year. Poor mental health is sadly widespread and can affect any of us at any time. Reducing stigma and making our workplaces a safe space for all has not only a benefit for the individual but saves our organisations money. Poor mental health impacts workplaces and has a knock on effect by reducing performance. Staff may be absent from work or in work but less productive and efficient.
It for is for all organisations. Large or small and from any sector; private, public or charity.
The partnership has three tiers and organisations can choose the tier that best suits their organisation. Our workplace consultant will work with you taking into account the number of staff, your budget and how far along the wellbeing journey you already are.
Please contact us for a quote.
The partnership includes the following:
- Workplace staff survey, access to the dashboard and feedback
- Help to build your action plan
- Consultancy hours to support activities from your action plan
- Access to resources in the Partners area
- Advice and guidance from Guernsey Mind
- Discount on Guernsey Mind training and signposting to trusted training providers
- Tickets to Workplace Wellbeing Conference
- Digital badge, to use on email sign off, social media and recruitment
- A plaque to display in the workplace
The advantage of signing up to something locally is that there is a person at the end of the phone or email. Guernsey Mind will support you with advice, guidance and materials.
The Partnership is an ongoing relationship. Organisations will initially sign up for a year and then during that time we will look at what would be appropriate moving forwards.
Yes. We have partnered with a local company called CoEfficient and developed a Health and Wellbeing workplace survey. All research in the wellbeing space currently advocates for having data to enable organisations to help them see where their gaps are, what is working and what isn’t so that there is starting place from which to work from. It enables organisations to put things in place and then see if this makes a difference.
The survey has 37 questions and only takes about 5-7 mins to undertake and should be completed by all staff.
Absolutely.
- We don’t collect staff names or email addresses
- The survey is deployed via a simple link to a webpage
- When we receive the data, we have no way of telling who it’s from. It’s just a bunch of numbers
- No one can drill down below 3 people in a demographic group on the dashboard
Possibly. We know that the survey we have is good because we have spent a lot of time making sure it is. We know, however, that many employers already use a survey. Some find their survey expensive and some employers have admitted it is run once a year and the data is not particularly well used or shared with staff. Some staff surveys don’t include wellbeing questions and organisations are often unable to drill down into factors such as demographic, seniority or departments and teams, which our survey is able to do
However, we know some employers are very happy with the one they use and if we agree that it includes the necessary wellbeing questions we would adjust the Partnership cost to reflect this and use your survey instead
Ultimately it is up to you. There is no pressure to sign up but we think it is likely that more can always be done in the wellbeing space. Some organisations think that people are happy and well at work but when they look at their survey data they see otherwise. Alternatively you might want your current and perspective employees to know you are a caring organisation and this is reflected in the Partnership.
Absolutely! We can work with all of the jurisdictions in your group, if that is helpful, or we can work with a Guernsey branch of a group. You tell us what works for you.
We have been working with four pre-launch partners that all signed up in October 2023. These are:
- MidEuropa
- Raven Property
- Bailiwick Law Enforcement
- LTS Tax
They have provided us with their insights so far, which we have shared on our website. We will be communicating their journey and sharing some of their thoughts with you.
Yes there are. This is a growing space. A lot of other options do not include a survey, however, so there is no data to help you make decisions on where to focus your attention.
Some other options are very expensive for what you get and none of them are locally based. All the money raised by the Workplace Partnership goes back into Guernsey Mind and supports the work we do locally in our community.
Yes and Yes! Contact us to find out more. We want to support any group wishing to partner with us and don’t want money to be a barrier.
“This partnership provides more resources, continuous learning opportunities, a forum to ask for help and a platform where we can strive to be better at creating a healthier workplace that benefits both the employer and employee. Happy employees – happy customers!”
“The opportunity to partner with Guernsey Mind and fully invest in a robust structure to provide resources to support our wellbeing has already proven to be a step in the right direction. We look forward to utilising this partnership to support and develop our people in the short and long term, as the ripple effect should benefit both their professional and personal lives”.
“The Partnership has allowed us to focus on areas that will make meaningful change. We can measure if our current wellbeing initiatives and policies are having a positive effect, where we need to focus our efforts and what we are currently doing well.”
“When Guernsey Mind offered us the Workplace Wellbeing Partnership we grabbed it with both hands. I believe that this will be a huge step forward for us being able to make a difference to addressing what is important to our staff in terms of wellbeing.”
