MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACE


FOCUS FEATURE A WORKPLACE THAT WORKS


Designing spaces for “free-range humans” is crucial for maintaining employee wellbeing and maximising their potential, believes Rob Day (pictured). The chairman of office fit-out specialist Blueprint


Interiors says companies must approach post-Covid as an opportunity to “de-institutionalise” their workplaces. He has never been an advocate of offices featuring


rows upon rows of desks as he doesn’t believe they are conducive to how people work and interact with each other, but feels the pandemic has accelerated the need for businesses to move away from this concept. Rob says: “If you accept that people are your main


Nicole O'Callaghan, Hope Health founder


Mental health awareness predates the pandemic at PPL


PRS – which has built a reputation as an attractive place to work since it moved into a modern office at Mercury Place, adorned with a 30-metre-long music history wall mural, in April 2017. The company has had mental health first aiders in place


for two years. There are 11 in the team, spanning various roles and departments, and there’s plans to increase this cohort to 15. Employees – known as “band members” internally in


keeping with the music theme – can access profiles on each person to see their skills, experiences and specialisms, such as bereavement, schizophrenia and depression. Louisa is glad to see other businesses following suit with


similar schemes and training. She adds: “If you think about things coming out of the pandemic that will be a positive, the way in which businesses think about mental health in the workplace is definitely one of them. “People are now actively talking about it and companies


are implementing changes that will make a tangible difference to employees.”


NICOLE O’CALLAGHAN SPENT a decade struggling with poor mental health as she tried to hold down a stressful business development director position in a large facilities management company while raising a young family. She eventually reached a crisis point in March 2009,


when she nearly took her own life, but would piece herself back together again.


‘We try to make sure mental health is on a par with physical health’


Compelled by the despair she had experienced, Nicole retrained as a mental health instructor with social enterprise Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England and set up Hope Health UK, a wellbeing consultancy. Based in Essex, it has instructors located across the


country, including the Midlands, who train people within businesses to become mental health first aiders. Nicole says: “We try to make sure mental health is on a


par with physical health. For me, it makes a lot of sense because if there had been mental health first aiders in my workplace, they might have picked up the signs that were there. I would then have got the help I needed sooner before I reached the crisis point. “There was also a business cost for my employer as it


PPL PRS HR operations manager Louisa Starling


lost me for three months while I recovered. I then left the company permanently so there’s a retention case in all this too.”


business network April 2021 53


asset, as most businesses will, then why wouldn’t you do everything you can to ensure they are at their most productive? It should be pretty obvious that having rows of desks isn’t the best way to achieve that. Give them an overall strategic objective, and then empower and resource them to go away and deliver that. You can do this by thinking about what makes them tick. Because if people are ill, they can’t function properly and fulfil their potential. “Quite often, a workplace overrides individual style


and personality in order to drive a consistent outcome, but businesses should celebrate their staff’s individuality as ‘free range’ human beings.” Rob uses three main tools to ensure his company,


based in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, creates spaces fit for humans. His first, dubbed “human givens”, explores people’s


basic needs – both from a physical and emotional sense. This requires high-quality environments that not only make them feel safe and secure, but also able to flourish. “We need to feel a sense of community and belonging, and not under constant threat,” says Rob. “Humans are complex individuals but if you can


satisfy those fundamental needs then people won’t be ill, stressed or under-performing – they’ll be happy, healthy and productive.” The framework now being used by Blueprint to


build these environments is the WELL Building Standard, created by the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) – a public benefit corporation that claims to be “leading the global movement to transform our buildings and communities in ways that help people thrive”. Blueprint’s interior designer Rebecca Beadle is


working towards obtaining a qualification that will enable her to advise businesses on achieving WELL status, which measures the attributes of buildings based on seven concepts – water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, mind and air. “It tells us what good looks like,” says Rob, whose


company is redeveloping its own office according to this standard as part of a project called WorkLife Central to illustrate its benefits to clients. “Not only does it ensure people are well hydrated


and nourished, but it helps us design comfortable environments with the right temperature and humidity – vital components for treating humans as humans.”


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