Aviva has launched a mental health toolkit to help its group protection clients manage workplace wellbeing.
It is available to employers with group income protection, group critical illness and group life schemes and focuses on helping line managers support the mental health of their team, with a range of video training modules developed by CBT clinics that follow established best practice guidelines.
The toolkit has been designed to help managers spot changes, increase the use of early intervention, and to help give them the confidence to have conversations with employees.
The modules include:
- Mental health in the workplace: helping line managers identify employee behaviours and implement early intervention strategies
- Changing behaviour: empowering line managers to spot the warning signs of poor mental health in the physical and remote environment
- Having difficult conversations: helping line managers feel more confident in holding supportive conversations with team members, so they can address mental wellbeing concerns before they become more serious
- How to respond to a crisis situation: content to help line managers identify a mental health crisis situation and to increase their confidence in responding to the situation and taking effective action. Line managers will also have access to a crisis contact card with information on who to alert and other sources of help.
- Adapting and adjusting in the workplace: helping line managers better support employees to stay in or return to work successfully, with guidance on the reasonable adjustments which could be made
- Looking after yourself: helping line managers discover how to respond to their own mental health needs and
- Signposting: helping line managers understand the difference between signposting and giving bespoke advice, and understanding the importance of knowing what support is already in place in their workplace and ways to signpost to external support.
The toolkit complements a new wellbeing library of online guides from the insurer offering support on an array of situations, including family and relationships, money and work, mental and physical health conditions.
Sophie Money, group protection wellbeing manager at Aviva said: “We are excited about giving all line managers who work for our group protection clients access to this valuable training, whether they are insured lives or not.
“Supportive line management is a critical part of an employee’s satisfaction at work and managers are often either the first port of call within the workplace or the first to notice changes at the outset of an employee’s declining mental health.
“It is vital that line managers take the right action in these circumstances and that they too feel supported by their employer in doing so, which our training will help provide.
“We also hope that the line manager training improves the conversation around mental health in UK workplaces, developing knowledge and ensuring that those in need receive the right support.”