Breaking barriers to strengthen workplaces

Mental health has always been tough to tackle, in part because of stigmas around it. Energy Voice sat down with Texo commercial director Steve Johnson to get some insights into the company’s approach and how this links to changes in the energy sector.

HOW HARD IS IT TO TACKLE THE MENTAL HEALTH STIGMA?

If someone breaks an arm, you can see it. Mental health issues are harder to see – making it all the more important that companies work on enabling environments.

Mental Health Aberdeen provides mental health first aid courses, which help provide insights into early warnings. Early awareness is one the best tools we have.

Things to keep an eye on include changes in demeanour, or behaviour, or routine. This may manifest in small signals around how someone might dress or behave. The challenge is in telling the difference between a bad day or something more sustained.

HOW CAN AN ORGANISATION SUPPORT WORKERS’ MENTAL HEALTH?

At Texo we believe the way forward is in signposting that it is all right to have those conversations about how people feel.

The way in which people are relating to each other at work is changing. Partly this is about the younger generation entering the workforce who perhaps engage more openly, but

there is a societal shift taking place where it is OK to talk about how you are feeling.

The barriers between what are topics for discussion at home and at work are also breaking down. People are not just workers, to neglect that is a mistake.

At Texo, we’re all encouraged to do what we can to help others. That takes effort, particularly at a time when people have their own challenges.

The mindset is that we are all in this together. There is of course a legal obligation to look after people, but mental health support should not be reduced to a box-ticking exercise.

Processes, particularly of such crucial support, should be in place but there is also a moral drive to get it right. Legislation provides the guidance about what things to look at, but organisations need to go beyond just following the rule book.

HOW SHOULD COMPANIES RESPOND TO FAILURE?

There is a need for human engagement to deal with how people are struggling and how best they can be supported.

Dealing with failure is as important as dealing with success. At the heart of that is being able to fail and learn, which can take us into amazing places as a business. Mental health needs and support underpin that process.

Making it safe to fail provides scope to succeed in the future and encourages creativity.

Providing early mental health support helps to avoid that point of crisis.

HOW CAN WE HELP PEOPLE OVERCOME CHANGE?

The oil and gas industry is famously cyclical. If left unchecked this sense of precarity can have a negative impact on people’s outlook, especially when a drop in the oil price creates fear of imminent job losses.

Companies working in the space must work out how best to tackle this. There is a sense that some in the industry see this as the cost of doing business, but we should consider how to reduce the severity of the highs and lows.

One way may be through engagement with the broader energy space. While oil and gas goes through booms and busts, renewable energy opportunities do not move to the same rhythm.

Workplace expectations and dynamics are changing. Part of that will require new thinking about mental health.

CHALLENGE: Texo’s Steve Johnson is keen to protect staff wellbeing.