Mental Health For The People

Part 3: Our (draft) Mental Health Policy

At the end of last year we set out to write a mental health policy for For The People. We started by looking at what’s already out there – how organisations around Australia are approaching mental wellbeing in the workplace. But what we found left us with a lot of questions and a few concerns.

So, we did some primary research in the company and started talking what a better approach might look like. The post below is where landed — a mental health policy for the people. It is a working document and it’s by no means a finished product. We recognise that there’s a lot still we have to learn about this space. The policy below is designed as a set of principles and activities for us to test out, report back on and learn from over the coming months.

Introduction

We know that the mental wellbeing of every single one of us in the room has been negatively impacted by work at some point. We also know that, at the time of asking, half of FTPers had been diagnosed with a mental health condition.

This may sound surprising because, as a society, we don’t talk that much about mental health, particularly in the context of work. But it shouldn’t be; ‘half of all people’ is broadly in line with the national figures.

This isn’t something we can ignore.

We want to build a company which supports us all to come to work and live our lives in the best state of mental health possible, every single day. This policy is the starting point to getting there. It sets out to achieve three main objectives:

1. Address every single person and create conditions that prevent mental health problems from developing or worsening.

2. Stick it to stigma and help everyone feel more comfortable talking about their own and others’ mental health.

3. Make a dent by establishing a template for the industry to adopt and adapt.

1. Address Every Single Person

The prevailing model for employee mental health policy is to address people at the pointy-end of mental health problems and focus on response rather than prevention. Unfortunately, this means it doesn’t kick in until it’s too late. We want to flip this model around.

Any one of us can be mentally healthy or unhealthy at any point in time — and this changes year-to-year, month-to-month, week-to-week. Our aim is to build a policy which not only covers everyone but prompts us all to consider our own and each others’ mental health at frequent intervals.

The foundation of our policy puts in place the structures to do this – by getting us a basic education, getting in some experts, and setting up internal process and response mechanisms. Here are the specifics:

• Our aim is to have every FTPer trained up as a Mental Health First Aider by the end of June 2018. This is a 1–2 day course designed to teach members of the public how to identify and help a person developing a mental health problem or experiencing a worsening of an existing mental health problem. It’s not compulsory but we hope everyone will take up the opportunity.
• Once every three months we will also bring a mental wellbeing coach into For The People. This will give us a chance to get together as a group and discuss challenges we’re experiencing and how to overcome them. We hope it will become part of our company rhythm and be approached with the same commitment and enthusiasm as Stand Up, Book Club, or Friday Wrap Up. We’ll check-in with everyone after the first session to see how it’s going.

Beyond this, we want everyone to be aware of and understand the wider support available, for example, via Medicare’s mental health treatment plan. This reference document put together by Never Not Creative has a growing list of links and need-to-knows about where you can find further help and guidance.

2. Stick It To Stigma

There’s no doubt that there’s a stigma attached to mental health — it was raised by almost everyone in our initial research. Speaking up when you’re feeling down is hard enough to do already, then you run into the fact that talking openly about it, especially at work, just isn’t really done.

Our aim is to step out of the shadows and make talking about mental health at work normal. To do this, we can’t rely on process alone. It will mean all of us shifting our mindset and day-to-day behaviours. Below is a list of small daily and weekly actions we encourage and expect from every FTPer:

• Look out for each other. If you see someone in the team struggling, grab them for a coffee or a walk, offer to help out on a project or just let them know you’re there if they need.
• If you’re feeling down try to let someone know. Tell the team, put it in the #headsup Slack channel or grab a friend in the office. Someone will help. It will take time for it to feel normal, but it starts with small steps.
• Speak up at stand-up. It’s up to the chair to ask the question “How are you feeling?” at the end of each live project and at the end of the meeting. It’s up to each of us to speak up if we’re feeling anxious, angry or down about how things are looking for the week.
• Work out what works for you. Lunchtime runs, mid-afternoon meditation, religious 3pm Rocket League, working from home on a meeting-free morning. As long as you respect your team and attend the meetings you have booked in, it’s all good.
• Take the time off that you need. If you feel exhausted, your mind isn’t tip-top or you just need a day to recover after an full-on few weeks, take the time off that you need.
• Don’t feel you have to label it. A sick day is a sick day. Chest infection, broken leg or feeling flat — “I’m not feeling well” is all you need to say. That said, if you feel comfortable talking more openly, that’s also great.
• If, for any reason, you need more time off (over 5 days) or more support, speak to Damian, Jason or someone in the team who you trust. We will work it out with you and do everything we can to help and support you.

3. Making A Dent

There are certain factors about our industry which we all recognise. These are the themes that came out from almost everyone in our initial research:

We feel under sustained pressure to perform from all sides — our clients, our directors, our peers and almost always without fail, ourselves.

We play in a field where subjective opinion is often the primary measure of success.

We’ve been known to work long hours for weeks in a row without sufficient sleep, nutrition or sunlight...

What we don’t always recognise is the impact that these conditions have on our short- and long-term mental wellbeing. We want to understand this better so that we can design policies and make interventions that are fit-for-purpose for our industry and that will help improve the mental wellbeing of everyone who works in it.

Beyond this, we know that working for an independent company, in a small team, also brings about other pressures. We may not have the means to run comprehensive, corporate Employee Assistance Programs but that doesn’t mean we can’t build an alternative.

To better understand this, and look at the patterns across our whole industry, we’ve teamed up with the University of Newcastle, Everymind and the Never Not Creative community to conduct a major benchmarking study of mental health in the creative, design and media agencies.

The survey is making its way through the academic ethics approval pipeline at this very moment and we will share the link with you as soon as it’s live.

Do you have any reflections on mental health at work? Does your company have a stand-out stance on mental health? Have you seen anyone else doing great work in this space? We’d love to hear from you: hello@forthepeople.agency / @ForThePeopleAu