Nurture Why Bother With Mental Health In Your Workplace? It’s a really simple question isn’t it? I mean why should we really bother about how our staff are feeling? They’re paid to do a job so why not just do it. How are you as a busy employer meant to care, let alone see, how your staff are feeling during a pandemic…. If you’re reading those questions above and agree with them then unfortunately my friend you may be part of the problem and not the solution. The days of seeing your staff as just performers and employees are now gone.
Evidence suggests that 12.7% of all sickness absence days in the UK can be attributed to mental health conditions There are many statistics out there that show that £b’s are lost every year due to both Presenteeism and sickness as a result of poor mental health of employees. So in relation to that, how much does your business lose either through lost
Michael Byrne: Founder of LET’s
productivity or sickness and absence due to the poor mental health of your staff? Better mental health support in the workplace can save UK businesses up to £8 billion per year.
Before establishing my business, Lived Experience Trauma Support, LETs for short I had a 33 year career in the Corporate World culminating in the final 10 years as a Director for a large housing organisation in Glasgow. During that 33 year career I had to deal with many ‘Real Life’ traumas including the murder of my father, the loss of twins to miscarriage, The Clutha Disaster, a potentially cancerous throat tumour, a suspected stroke and finally a Mental Health Breakdown in 2017. Despite all of the above traumatic events I never took a day off work! I couldn’t, I had built up this persona of a confident, successful man who turned up for work every day and looked the part in a suit, shirt, tie, clean shaven and with a smile…and no-one looked beyond what the saw. Not even when I turned up for work the day after The Clutha Disaster. 9
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