One of our recent webinar attendees put this question to us, and honestly, it is one of the most important questions a manager can ask. So we are dedicating our next free lunchtime webinar to answering it properly.
Join us on 6 May for a session on mental health awareness in the workplace, with a focus on what managers should actually be thinking, saying and doing when someone on their team is not okay.
Why this matters
Most managers are not trained counsellors, and they should not have to be. But they do need to know how to respond well when an employee is struggling, because getting it wrong, whether that means doing too little, saying the wrong thing, or overstepping, can cause real harm to the individual and real legal risk to the business.
Mental health is one of the most common causes of long-term absence in UK workplaces. It is also one of the areas where we see the most tribunal claims, often not because employers set out to do the wrong thing, but because nobody quite knew what to do, and inaction became the default.
What we will cover
In this session we will look at the practical questions managers face, including:
- How to open a conversation with someone who appears to be struggling, and what not to say
- What reasonable adjustments might look like for mental health conditions, and how to approach them without overcomplicating things
- When to involve a coach or mental health practitioner, and how to do that sensitively
- The legal framework managers need to understand, including the duty to make reasonable adjustments and the risk of disability discrimination claims
- The most common mistakes we see, and how to avoid them
This series is shaped by you
This session came directly from a question raised by one of our attendees, and that is exactly how we want this series to work. If there is something specific you would like us to cover in a future session, please get in touch. If you are asking the question, others almost certainly are too.
Join us
6 May, lunchtime. Free to attend, as always. Sign up here.
