Mental health conditions cost Australian employers over $10 billion each year in both absenteeism and ‘presenteeism’ – that’s when employees turn up to work while unwell, and are unproductive.

In fact, an employee with untreated depression could cost your organisation as much as $9,665 a year.

And while your organisation might already have a great mental health policy in place, it’s probably a “one-size-fits-all” document. But have you ever considered implementing an action plan tailored to each employee’s individual wellbeing needs?

UK mental health charity Mind has created a tool to achieve just that.

Known as a Wellness Action Plan (WAP), the personalised and practical tool moves away from the reactive management of absence due to sickness, towards supporting employee wellbeing year-round – whether they’re currently experiencing mental health problems or not.

And it moves away from a “one-size-fits-all” approach to a tailored plan that each employee creates in collaboration with their manager.

Having managers encourage their team members to draw up a Wellness Action Plan gives the employees ownership of the practical steps needed to help them stay well at work or manage a mental health problem. It also opens up a dialogue between manager and team member, helping managers to better understand their team’s needs and experiences and therefore better support their wellbeing.

And by providing structure around mental health conversations in the workplace, the tool can also provide a boost to employee productivity, performance and job satisfaction.

A proactive approach

The WAP helps individual employees to identify:

• What keeps them well at work,
• What might cause them to become unwell, and
• The support they’d like to receive from their manager to boost their wellbeing or support them to recover.

Ultimately, it should be an empowering tool that gives employees ownership of the practical steps needed to help them stay well at work, manage a mental health problem or even return to work after an absence due to poor mental health.

This personalised strategy towards mental health in the workplace sends a clear message that being well matters – and that the traditional reactive, blanket approach to managing sickness absence is losing relevance.

How to get started

Choose an appropriate place to start the conversation.

When discussing mental health and wellbeing, it’s important to make people feel comfortable so that they feel able to have an open and honest conversation. If holding your discussion in the workplace, find a private and quiet space.

Or if your team member is working remotely, be sure to provide appropriate notice of the meeting so they can find an appropriate space to have the discussion. A person working from home may not feel comfortable having a conversation about mental health if sharing a working space with a partner or other members of their household.

Sometimes a neutral space outside of the workplace like a coffee shop can help a team member to feel at ease. Depending on the location of any remote workers in your team, consider whether it might be possible to hold the meeting in person in a mutually agreeable location.

Drawing up a WAP

Designed to be treated as a live and flexible document, the WAP should be written and owned by each individual employee as an expression of his or her own personal choices, experiences and needs.

The employee’s manager should play an integral role in providing guidance, discussing the plan and supporting the employee – while being careful not to influence them with advice or suggestions.

Here are nine questions that Mind suggests your employee wellness action plans include:

 1. What are your current and intended working arrangements?

You might want to include any flexibility you’ve agreed, for example flexible working hours, remote work, longer lunch breaks.

2. Are there any characteristics of your individual working style that you’d like to make your manager or colleagues aware of?

For example, a preference for face to face conversations or digital communications, how work progress is tracked, how deadlines are set.

3. What helps you stay mentally healthy at work?

For example, taking an adequate lunch break away from your desk, getting some exercise before or after work or in your lunch break, light and space in the office, and opportunities to get to know colleagues.

 4. What can your manager or colleagues do to support you to stay mentally healthy at work?

For example, regular feedback and catch-ups, flexible working patterns, explaining wider organisational developments.

 5. Are there any situations or behaviours that can trigger poor mental health for you at work? 

For example, conflict at work, organisational change, tight deadlines, something not going to plan, difficulties in contacting colleagues.

 6. How might experiencing poor mental health impact on your work?

For example, you may find it difficult to make decisions, struggle to prioritise work tasks, or difficulty with concentration, drowsiness, confusion, or headaches.

 7. Are there any early warning signs that we might notice when you are starting to experience poor mental health?

For example, changes in normal working patterns and withdrawing from colleagues.

 8. If we notice early warning signs that you are experiencing poor mental health – what should we do?

For example, talk to you discreetly about it or contact someone that you have asked to be contacted.

9. What steps can you take if you start to experience poor mental health at work? Is there anything we need to do to facilitate them?

For example, you might like to take a break from your desk and go for a short walk, or ask your manager for support.

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Of course, the manager and your organisation more broadly have a responsibility to make sure processes are in place to keep any data confidential, only to be shared with the permission of the employee.

Mind’s website includes some valuable downloadable resources, plus managers can download Mind’s Wellness Action Planning Guide for Line Managers here.

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