Duvet days Going under cover is OK
We all have those days when we really don’t think we can face the day ahead, but is it OK to stay home and shut out the world, asks Siobhan Downes.
We know we should stay home when we’re sick, but what about staying home to stay mentally well? The coronavirus pandemic has reinforced the importance of taking sick days, and prompted the Council of Trade Unions to launch a push to double the legal minimum paid sick leave from five days to 10.
But some companies have another type of leave on offer, recognising that time off for your mental health is equally important.
Wellington-based company Sharesies offers its employees two days’ paid ‘‘wellness leave’’.
There are hardly any rules around the days and what they should be used for, though in most cases people would book them in advance, says Sharesies head of people experience Tamara Buckland.
‘‘Wellness is all about proactively providing support to yourself – it’s about noticing things before they’re happening or as they’re happening and then responding to them,’’ she says.
‘‘They’ll be thinking, ‘I’ve got a big project deadline coming up, I know I’m going to be working hard for the next while, and I know what fuels me is going for a lovely long walk. I’m going to book this time to go and do that, so I can come back and feel recharged’.
‘‘It’s about that sense of, ‘I know me, I know my patterns, I know at the moment things are really tough for me’.’’
Mental Health Foundation chief executive Shaun Robinson said there was a ‘‘very strong wave’’ of workplaces recognising the benefit of supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their staff.
‘‘Study after study has demonstrated the increased productivity and the increased bottomline dollar value to businesses that really take a proactive approach to supporting people’s mental health,’’ he says.
‘‘The analysis across those various studies have shown that it’s more than $4 return to every $1 that businesses invest in supporting mental wellbeing of their staff.’’
This was something the Mental Health Foundation itself had experienced. Over the three months of the coronavirus crisis, they had offered their 50 staff a raft of options, including half a day off a week to deal with personal issues, discretionary special leave for employees who had to look after children during lockdown, and unlimited sick leave during alert level 2 so there was no disincentive not to come into the office if they were feeling unwell.
At the same time, the foundation had put out ‘‘as much material in three months as we usually do in a year’’, Robinson says.
‘‘Some people might think staff would really take the mickey in that situation, [but] we’ve had higher levels of productivity than we have ever had during this period.’’
Gerard Clark, manager for employment standards policy at MBIE, said sick leave could be used ‘‘for both physical and mental health reasons’’, and many employers already provided leave entitlements above the minimum.
A 2019 report on workplace wellness by BusinessNZ and Southern Cross Health Society found 21.2 per cent of New Zealand businesses offered more than five sick days per year, while 4 per cent offered unlimited leave.
When looking at the reasons why someone might call in sick, interestingly, non work-related anxiety, stress or depression accounted for 27.3 per cent of absences in 2018, up from 14.7 per cent in 2016, while work-related anxiety, stress or depression accounted for 22.2 per cent of absences in 2018, up from 6.4 per cent in 2016.
The report said it was important to note that the increase didn’t mean such illnesses were more prevalent compared to 2016, but was most likely due to organisations acknowledging such things, and sending a signal to staff that they were a legitimate cause of absence.
‘‘If you think about wellness leave as us having a special category of leave that helps remind you that your wellbeing is extremely important, that’s how we think of it as separate to sick days.’’ Sharesies’ Tamara Buckland
Proponents of mental health days say the specific language around it is important, rather than ‘‘sick leave’’ being used as a vague catch-all.
In 2017, an email exchange between web developer Madalyn Parker and her boss went viral for its open dialogue around taking time off for mental health.
‘‘Hey team, I’m taking today and tomorrow to focus on my mental health,’’ Parker wrote.
‘‘Hopefully I’ll be back next week refreshed and back to 100 per cent.’’
Her boss replied: ‘‘I just wanted to personally thank you for sending emails like this. Every time you do, I use it as a reminder of the importance of using sick days for mental health – I can’t believe this is not standard practice at all organisations.
‘‘You are an example to us all, and help cut through the stigma so we can all bring our whole selves to work.’’
Robinson agreed it was helpful to be ‘‘upfront’’ about it.
‘‘It really needs to come as part of developing a whole culture around supporting the wellbeing of staff,’’ he says.
‘‘I think it’s fantastic when leaders can lead by example, and show their own vulnerability by taking ‘wellbeing days’ or ‘mental health days’ or ‘self care days’, or whatever we care to call it. I think that really frames it well that it’s OK for other staff.’’
Sharesies’ Buckland says the company’s wellness leave was just one component of a full suite of initiatives aimed at mental health, including ‘‘wellness windows’’ during work hours, where staff could go to talk to in-house mental health ‘‘first-aiders’’.
‘‘What we realised is that the actual leave component is all well and good, but helping people figure out how they are and what they might need in order to make the most of those wellness days had to go hand-in-hand with the leave policy itself.’’
Explaining the difference between ‘‘sick days’’ and ‘‘wellness days’’, Buckland says an employee who woke up one morning experiencing high anxiety would be welcome to take a sick day.
But a wellness day could be used to do any activity that makes you feel good, but that you might also feel ‘‘a little cheeky’’ about doing on a traditional sick day.
‘‘If you think about wellness leave as us having a special category of leave that helps remind you that your wellbeing is extremely important, that’s how we think of it as separate to sick days,’’ Buckland says.
‘‘It’s about proactivity, it’s about noticing patterns, it’s about saying to myself: ‘I deserve a day off here to go and do my thing’.’’