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Information of interest to our Clients and for the industry

Why introduce a Mental Health Champion?

Creating and maintaining a healthy culture in a business is key to retaining employees; reducing workers’ compensation claims; improve business productivity, being recognised as a well-renowned place to work within the industry; and many more positive factors.

One successful company culture initiative is introducing a Mental Health Champion, who provides mental health support and awareness to their workers. Mental health awareness is becoming prominent within our society both in a personal and workforce environment, especially with isolation and the change of routine during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here are some of the common questions employers have asked us about the Mental Health Champion role.

How can we support the in-house mental health initiative?

By appointing a Mental Health Champion, this will drive the subject across the business and create a positive workplace culture. Having a friendly point of contact that can listen to issues, validate and understand the concerns, be empathic and destigmatize the shame of mental health is critical for the initiative to be successful.

What is a Mental Health Champion?       

The person appointed in this role is to drive awareness of mental health within the workplace. This is a very important position as the champion is the point of contact between the employee and the employer regarding mental health issues. This saves valuable resources in various teams managing the issue on their own, allows better data and information capture and provides a consistent message across the business.

For the Mental Health Champion role to succeed they should:

  • work with stakeholders across the business to promote the importance and benefits of good mental health within the workplace;
  • identify any actions or initiatives to enhance the mental health of their co-workers;
  • conduct activities and open conversations on mental health throughout the business.

 

What makes a great Mental Health Champion?

Here is our list of qualities the champion should embody:

  • passionate about raising mental health awareness;
  • confident in destigmatizing mental illness;
  • approachable, respectable, and friendly;
  • empathic, open to listening and encouraging to seek support for Mental Health issues;
  • being the face of mental health within the workplace.

 

Our tip is the voluntary position should be open to all employees to apply, as it provides a positive employee-employer engagement.

While it may sound easy to implement the Mental Health Champion role into the business, many employers are not sure how to do it. Work Options can help guide businesses through workplace mental health awareness including training for the Mental Health Champion to be equipped with the tools they need to perform this vital role.

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