Partner Article

Partnership launched to drive workplace wellbeing

Staff wellbeing platform provider Lumien has teamed up with counselling hotline specialist MindSpace 247 to help businesses better understand and support the mental health of their teams.

With businesses, large and small, looking to recruit, retain and nurture the talent that will help them thrive in the future, it has never been more important for employers to focus on employee wellbeing.

The potential impact of not addressing workplace mental health is significant. UK business could avoid losing £45 billion a year by better supporting staff. For every £1 invested in supporting employees’ mental health, employers get £5 back by way of reduced presenteeism, absenteeism and staff turnover.

Based on the mental health data his company has gathered over the past 18 months, Christopher Golby, co-founder and director at Lumien, highlights how untrained managers – ie lacking in soft skills - make for a difficult workplace. It reveals that 50% of employees cite bad management as their reason for leaving a job. Untrained managers can also result in a 16% drop in productivity which translates to a financial hit of over £5,000 per employee.

Data from Lumien’s own platform – which assesses how employee mental health and wellbeing have changed through the COVID-19 pandemic - show: • 27% of people are significantly impacted by financial worries • 33% of people have shown indicators of depression • 46% of people showed signs of significant stress • 78% of people have had their sleep impacted • 52% of people showed signs of loneliness.

“We’re set on putting, wellbeing and culture, on every board meeting agenda. Let’s get British business proactively supporting, robust wellbeing in their workforces. They leave work stronger than when they arrived rather than drained as is so often the case. “A data-led wellbeing strategy not only supports people, but it can also improve the culture and effectiveness of a business overall.”

The partnership between MindSpace 247 and Lumien gives business leaders, insights into how their whole team’s feeling. Leaders need those insights to build a strategy to build wellbeing. With Lumien and MindSpace 247, managers also get tools such as timely access to round-the-clock counselling to help support recovery.

“The reality is, all too often, companies only think ‘it’s time to do something about mental health’ when things are already going wrong. Then they look for the quick fix, and often turn to Mental Health First Aid or Employee Assistance Programmes. However, these decisions are reactive, rather than proactively tackling the issue.

“Other businesses put tools in place to manage mental health - such as offering subscriptions to mindfulness apps or programmes - without any mechanism in place to measure uptake or impact.

“Companies need to proactively invest in giving their leaders ‘tools’ to monitor and respond to wellbeing issues. With many businesses struggling to fill posts, the stakes are high. Job vacancies are at record levels with many businesses struggling to recruit even when offering higher salaries. “

Lumien’s reports and recommendations deliver individual, team and entire business level reports throughout the year, giving organisations the data, they need to pre-empt deterioration of their teams’ wellbeing.

MindSpace 247 gives human support for those who need help immediately. Guy Outram, co-founder of MindSpace 247 explains: “Research tells us conclusively that talking with someone about one’s concerns, life problems etc, has the single-most significant positive impact on one’s wellbeing. Picking up the phone to talk about your own mental health concerns with a stranger is a brave thing to do. We aim to get every caller interacting with their therapist as quickly as possible without needing a GP’s referral. Team members with mental health concerns are in front of therapists within minutes when their employer uses Lumien and Mindspace 247 together. That’s making a difference.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Bdaily .