Having a healthy workplace is a win-win situation for employers and employees, but it can be a challenge to create an environment that truly supports mental health and builds resilience.

Research proves that investing in your people’s wellbeing is beneficial to both them and the business, overall, so let's look at ways leaders and managers can build resilience in the wider workplace, support employee wellbeing, and build an open and supportive company culture.

Benefits of a resilient workforce

There are many benefits to building employee resilience, from your team members being more engaged and productive to fewer problems with staff absenteeism, burnout, and turnover. It also means you meet your legal obligation to manage risks to employees’ mental and physical health, just like any other health & safety risk.

How to build a resilient workplace

Resilience hinges on giving people opportunities to build the knowledge, skills, and capabilities to really thrive at work and be able to respond effectively to stress, challenges, and change. Cementing wellbeing in the day-to-day work culture is mulit-faceted and takes individual and combined effort. Here are some key components:

• Take the lead - look after your own health and promote honest conversations with your team.

• Increase awareness of wellbeing and remove stigma around mental health.

• Ensure the work environment is safe and encourage staff to look out for each other.

• Design work to support better work-life balance, e.g. involve staff in decisions on when, where, and how work is performed, and closely monitor workloads.

• Invest in training programmes, e.g. mental health awareness, stress management, recovery, and self-care.

• Provide organisational support, e.g. Employee Assistance Programmes that give employees access to trained specialists.

• Offer exercise and mindfulness programmes to support health, e.g. step challenges or lunchtime yoga.

To learn more about workplace mental health, building employee resilience, and creating a real culture of openness and support, have a look at this article.