Sharing stories of vulnerability and leading by example are key ways that global firms are supporting the mental health of their line managers and wider workforces.
This is according to senior benefits professionals at a trio of multinational organisations who took part in a roundtable organised by Make A Difference and Axa Health yesterday.
In order to support its line managers, Kirsty McLean, head of wellbeing at Nomura UK, told the online audience: “Line managers shouldn’t feel that it’s all up to them. We don’t expect them to be therapists and again, the same with our wellbeing champions.
“We’ve over 100 wellbeing champions across all department at Nomura in the UK, and again, they’re not therapists. It’s about how do they signpost people to resources and support.
“What we find is that at Nomura we have business partners, we have occupational health and our line managers who all work together to ensure processes are in place and everybody in the business understands what the processes are – whether that be for reasonable adjustments – and how do we get people the right support that they need at the right time efficiently.
“And I work to support that in my role as well across all internal departments.”
But McLean also maintained it is important for line managers to lead by example.
“So I think the best line managers are the ones that will open up and say, ‘Oh, I’m just leaving early today,'” she continued.
“‘I’ve got this appointment’ or ‘This is going on – I’ve got this commitment that I’m going to.’ And when they open up about that, it creates that psychological safety that their team members can then also open up as well.
“I think that’s really important,” she added.
Sharing vulnerabilities
Paul Duggan, global health and wellbeing lead EMEA at Accenture, said the firm recently ran a UK-based programme with a cohort of 75 of staff it thought were most likely to go on to be managing directors in the future.
“What we’ve done there is we’ve been running panel sessions with senior leaders talking about their own vulnerabilities, talking about their own challenges, talking about what they need to do to take care of themselves,” Duggan said.
“It’s just demystifying that when you go up to that next level, just you become what’s perceived as ‘senior’ doesn’t mean you that you are suddenly a flawless person or someone that’s got everything under control and actually to really emphasise the importance of self care in being able to have a sustainable career.”
Duggan noted that those sessions were well received by participants.
“We got some really positive feedback from people who had their eyes open that it’s not just about showing you can work as hard as you can. It’s not just about being the person that always solves the problem,” he continued.
“It’s actually about taking care of yourself if you want to have a sustainable career at senior level.
“So we saw that as a big success.”
Mental health champions
Catherine Ritchie, wellbeing and experience manager at Clifford Chance, revealed the firm operates a mental health champions network.
“We actually have quite a lot of managers or people leaders within that group who are beginning that role modelling piece,” Ritchie said.
“They’ve got that hyperawareness very aligned to the global strategy and awareness of all the benefits – signposting etc.
“We have also built in our global strategy what we call the enablers – the pillars of how we’re achieving that vision.
“One of the things that we’re really focused on as well is enabling ownership so it is about how we are enabling our managers, how we’re enabling everybody.
“The way we think about it is the firm, the team, the individual.
“It’s at every one of those levels how we are enabling that so managers are a really core element of that.”
Understanding caring needs
Heather Smith, CEO of Axa Health, pointed to the insurer’s We Care programme which, along with its leadership support help packages, enables leaders to manage staff with empathy and emotional concern.
The We Care’ programme, launched in April is designed to provide health and wellbeing support to Axa’s workforce at different life stages.
“A lot of our people are carers,” Smith explained.
“We’re finding a lot of workers are caring for parents, other family members, children who have got extra needs so that flexibility and support and how the We Care programme combined with that children resources allows them to manage life’s full complexity and challenges.”