Time to Talk Day 2024: What You Can Do to Support Your Team’s Mental Health

On the 1st of February, it’s Time to Talk Day.

Time to Talk Day offers the perfect opportunity to engage your colleagues and teams in conversations about mental health, advocate for a better approach towards mental well-being in the workplace, and support those around us with their emotional health. Compassionate, open conversations can have a strong, long-lasting positive impact on any workplace, helping to safeguard and prioritise your employees’ mental health and wellbeing. In this blog post, we’re discussing why Time to Talk Day is relevant to your business, including how you can mark this Day with your team and some wider mental health strategies and commitments you can carry forward well after the Day itself and into the future.

What is Time to Talk Day?

Developed by the mental health charity Mind in collaboration with Rethink Mental Illness, Time to Talk Day reminds and encourages us to talk about mental health with our friends, families, and co-workers. Conducted at community centres, sports clubs, educational institutes, and offices across the UK, Time to Talk Day can be held in your workplace to address and raise awareness of mental health concerns, risk factors, and coping mechanisms.

As a designated event to discuss mental health, recognising Time to Talk Day can help remove the stigma around what may seem an uncomfortable topic, encouraging your employees to talk freely and share how they feel. As emphasised by Time to Talk, a conversation has the power to change lives, and expressions of empathy, understanding, and support can go a long way in helping an employee take care of their mental well-being. Why is Time to Talk Day important for your workplace?

According to the Health and Safety Executive, 1 in 4 individuals in the UK face a mental health problem at one or more points in their lives, with anxiety and depression being the most common. Workplace stress, compounded with the problems we all face in our daily lives, can have a severe impact on you and your employees’ mental health, leading to symptoms of anxiety, depression, exhaustion, and burnout. MHFA England’s most recent statistics from 2023 highlight poor mental health as the reason for over 51% of long-term sick leave. A survey undertaken by Deloitte also revealed that 60% of employees across different organisations were seriously considering quitting their current roles for a job that would better support their mental well-being. These employees reported heavy workloads, unsupportive policies, and lack of skills training for specific roles and responsibilities as aspects of their work which all negatively impacted their mental health. These insights highlight how serious the impact of poor employee mental health can be, with stressed out, anxious, or depressed employees unable to perform and feel their best. Not only will employees be less engaged in their workplace if they’re suffering from poor mental health, but your organisation’s productivity can suffer from delayed, lower-quality, or incomplete work – not to mention the damage an unsupportive culture can have on your reputation as an employer.

There can be many reasons for experiencing poor mental health, and work might have nothing to do with it. However, regardless of why an employee is struggling, it’s your responsibility as an employer to support them where you can, doing what’s possible to prioritise their wellbeing actively. A supportive, caring work environment can make any issues being experienced outside of work easier to manage.

Time to Talk Day in Your Workplace: The 5 Key Principles

Time to Talk Day is all about having dialogue, opening up, and sharing our personal experiences with our mental health. These conversations can be adapted to the needs of your workplace and employees, ranging from casual chats to educational seminars and more intimate peer support groups. At Thrive4Life, we recommend anchoring these conversations around the following key principles:

A conversation structured around these principles may look something like this:

These types of conversations will allow you to connect with your employees on a deeper level, have more honest and transparent conversations, gain insights into the different mental health needs of each individual, get familiar with personal boundaries, and be adequately prepared to offer resources that will help your team lead happier, healthier, and more balanced lives.

Going Forward: Actioning Your Learnings From Time to Talk Day

The conversations held on Time to Talk Day can help highlight the specific mental health issues your employees may be struggling with. Armed with these insights, you can then take appropriate measures to confront, mitigate, and manage the problems highlighted by your employees. These measures can take the form of wider organisational changes or small commitments.

Thrive4Life’s Top 4 Recommendations for Organisational Commitments:

1. If Possible, Implement a More Flexible Working Culture: A flexible working culture involves offering hybrid or remote working opportunities, giving employees more control over their schedules, and adapting workloads according to individual circumstances and abilities. This approach favours output over monitoring and micromanaging the exact amount of time employees spend in the office or log on a specific task. Instead, you can allow your employees to work on their own schedules, take breaks when needed, and work from their own space rather than mandating attendance in the office. Flexible work policies can help reduce work stress and pressure by allowing employees autonomy over their routines. Allow your employees to customise their approach to handling a specific task, identify what best suits their needs, and focus on the quality of the work produced rather than quantifying hours spent in the process. Work-related stress can also be alleviated when employees know they have the opportunity to adjust their workloads and aren’t stressed about approaching their manager to help them share tasks or roles when needed.

2. Provide Mental Health Training for Managers: Training managers in mental health skills can mean employees’ first port of call has the professional training and knowledge to support them with whatever mental health issue they’re experiencing. The CIPD recommends training managers in the skills and behaviours needed to engage staff in mental health conversations.

3. Seek Expert Advice and Services: Getting advice from mental health professionals is a safe and effective way to offer support to your employees.

4. Develop Wellbeing Initiatives: Wellbeing initiatives are a great way to promote a positive work culture. These initiatives can be focused on mental health to provide comfort and relief to struggling employees.

It’s not all about the big changes. These recommendations for company-wide provisions should be paired with individual steps you and your employees can take to boost your mental well-being and that of those around you.

These daily steps can be as simple as:

1. Asking each other about your day

2. Providing positive feedback and appreciation on work-related tasks

3. Having a light-hearted discussion over a tea break

4. Taking and encouraging the taking of regular breaks

5. Teaching simple coping mechanisms such as deep breathing or stretching

6. Listening to some music on noise-cancelling headphones

7. If working from home, lighting a scented candle

8. Thinking about how you can get more natural light into your workspace, whether at home or in the office

9. Providing herbal teas for your team like chamomile or lavender for stress reduction

10. Expressing gratitude and appreciation when a colleague helps with a task

11. Suggesting or participating in walking meetings for a change of scenery, physical activity, and some fresh air. If you want to chat to someone about their wellbeing, sometimes it’s easier to open up while walking side by side instead of sitting opposite each other, which can feel very intense and interview-like.

These small steps can have a big impact by encouraging healthy habits and creating a positive and supportive work environment among teams and colleagues.

A Closing Note

Time to Talk Day may take place once a year, but its positive impact can be longstanding. It reminds us to take care of each other, have compassion, and be more considerate towards anyone struggling with mental health issues. Time to Talk Day is an ideal opportunity to refocus your attention on your employees’ mental wellbeing needs. Our recommendations and guidelines foregrounding the key principles of empathy, communication, inclusivity, awareness, and support can help you address any workplace barriers to mental wellbeing and offer your employees a safer and healthier working environment. A single conversation can catalyse major change, so let’s get talking this Time to Talk Day!