Change the mindset

“HOW are you feeling today? I mean really feeling. It’s a different question to ‘How are you?’, isn’t it? Our default response to this question is usually a polite ‘Well, thanks. You?’ regardless of whether it’s true or not.

Signs of stress, anxiety and poor mental health are, for most of us, figuratively and literally below the surface. They’re not always obvious to colleagues and workmates as we bottle them up between the hours of 8.30 and 5.30 for fear of appearing weak or off- balance. Instead, we continue with the ‘Morning! How are you?’ I’m fine... you? charade, despite being much more mental health ‘literate’ than we were a few years ago. Or so we thought.

The fact that people still don’t feel they can confide in a colleague or employer really is astonishing. When someone unexpectedly hobbles into work on crutches, our immediate reaction is to gasp and actively enquire as to ‘What happened?!’ But if that same person arrived looking tired, stressed, or even visibly upset, it wouldn’t be uncommon for us to turn a blind eye, or avoid engaging with their struggle for fear of being ‘intrusive’. This corporate mindset has to change. We need to remove the stigma attached to conversations around mental health and find tangible ways of supporting people who are struggling.

I want my team to be genuinely happy and healthy at work, not just pretend to be. As Sir Richard Branson famously said: “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients.”

What are you doing to promote mental health and happiness in your workplace? I’d love to connect and share successes and challenges in this space - email Andrew.Buerckner@ptc.travel.

We need to remove the stigma attached to conversations around mental health and find tangible ways of supporting people who are struggling’