‘You don’t have to be ill to get better’

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The seventh MAD World Summit took place yesterday in London, with new tracks dedicated to both the Legal and the Construction industry added this year, in addition to the existing Leaders and DE&I Summits.

The event kicked off with an introduction from the Rt Hon The Lord Mayor of London, Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli, who articulated a key theme, which threaded through the whole conference, when he said: 

“You don’t have to be ill to get better”.

One of the biggest challenges the industry faces, however, is that while the delegates of MAD World are generally very health and self aware, often the average employee is not.

Employees don’t know they’re ill

The reality is that many employees don’t know they’re ill until they reach crisis point, at which point they need urgent and expensive intervention. One statistic, for example, cited in the Legal Summit from WONE’s research showed that 80% of lawyers don’t know the signs to look out for that indicate they are reaching their limit in terms of stress in their role.

This lack of awareness partly explains why EAP engagement rates are so low, and also why EAPs often receive inappropriate crisis calls (see this feature for more on this).

Even less employees have the necessary insight to realise when they are languishing at work and not performing as well as they could be. These employees just think how they feel in terms of low energy and motivation, for example, is ‘normal’, not knowing that there are wellbeing skills they can learn that will help them thrive in all aspects of their work and life.

What is the solution?

But, as always with MAD World, the conference is not just about facing the difficult questions, it’s also about collectively trying to answer them.

In the interactive breakfast briefing led by On Wellbeing, speakers and delegates talked about the way to combat this could be through improving health literacy throughout organisations. In this session, and many others, the topic of finding appropriate, relatable language to engage employees with was identified as vital, as was the need to adapt language according to segment.

Throughout the day, wellbeing professionals shared openly their struggles around encouraging colleagues to see the value in taking time out of their busy schedules – especially if they are fee earners filling in time sheets – to learn about wellbeing. Some even talked of high resistance to any training being mandatory, with others saying they’d had to make training optional due to backlash.

Much yet to do

All these experiences and the research points to the fact that there is still much communication work to be done around explaining the benefits of investing time and training in wellbeing to employees. As one delegate said, the employees who had experienced burnout and then been forced to learn about looking after themselves actually then returned to work as the most productive, thriving colleagues – which begs the question, how can employees really realise the importance of wellbeing without needing to get the point of burnout or breakdown? How can we jolt them into realisation without the need for ill health to make clear the benefits of good health?

Another possible solution which was proposed in several sessions was the power of stories to change minds and make people feel less alone, so they feel confident seeking help. Stories provide a non-threatening way for listeners to see themselves in another’s experience and have those lightbulb moments that prompt them to seek help.

Stigma still an issue

Stigma is still an issue and, as one speaker said, has actually increased in relation to mental health issues recently which she attributed to the end of public awarenss campaigns like Time to Change. This means employers talking about mental health at work is more important than ever.

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Another proposed that worries about job security are the biggest obstacle preventing employees from seeking support. Again, stories of employees who have navigated mental health issues and come out the other side thriving at work will help to chip away at these cultural beliefs.

One speaker talked of how she had seen an uplift in engagement when she “handheld” employees through the company wellbeing platform, so they knew exactly what to do and how. She suggested we can’t underestimate the need to do this or overestimate the level of knowledge of the average employee. 

Institution or individual?

Yet another speaker talked about the need to talk about tangible, practical skills that can change lives for the better rather than “nebulous” narratives about wellbeing theory.

Ultimately, the conversation often looped back to the central question of responsibility for employee wellbeing and who it lies with – the employer or individual? Despite a well-fought, lively debate in the Leaders Summit, the general consensus from the day is that, of course, the answer is both. 

In the case of this challenge of employees not recognising they are ill, or could be better, it’s the organisation’s job to offer up the knowledge and resources for employees to gain a better understanding of themselves. But individuals have to put in the (often hard) work of reflecting on, and changing, their behaviour. As another speaker said: “this often requires an individual to do some soul searching”.

No matter how caring or empathetic a Leader is, they cannot do the work for the individual. And, as the wildly successful peer support programme Alcoholics Anonymous knows all too well – the first step towards change is an individual taking responsiblity for having a problem in the first place. Ergo, back to the point at the start of this article: we need to help people realise that they could be better, they could even be ill.

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