HR and D&I professionals play a vital role in supporting employee mental health, and creating a workplace where all employees feel supported and valued. So what are some of the mental health must-haves in your organisation? Our Head of HR, Diversity and Inclusion has put together our top five:

1. Educate employees about mental health. There are still misconceptions about mental health and this can make it difficult for employees to seek help when they need it.  Providing  workshops, articles and signposts to other resources will all help and it should be clearly communicated that employees can ask for help with workloads.
2. Educate managers about mental health and what to do if they are concerned about an employee.
3. Provide specialist support in the form of counselling services (which can often be part of wider EAP or health insurance services). Having these readily available can help to destigmatise mental health so that employees feel comfortable seeking help when they need it and enable them to get help more quickly.  What is often overlooked is support for line managers when they are supporting others with mental health issues, so make sure they know how to access support for themselves.
4. Promote an inclusive culture so that all employees feel valued, respected, supported and can feel comfortable to be themselves and speak up about their experiences.
5. Enable flexibility, wherever possible to reduce overall stress and improve mental health and encourage employees to take regular breaks and not work excessive hours.

And what about when things get tricky? Supporting employee mental health through formal HR processes, performance management or making reasonable adjustments is an area we regularly support our clients with.

We’ve put together some guidance on formal HR processes where there is a mental health element involved here, and a new guidance note from our employment lawyers which answers some of the most common legal questions we get asked around formal processes.