In previous roles as Head and Learning and Development over the last decade, I’ve always had a mental health / wellbeing action as part of the HR strategy. Sometimes a nod from and employee engagement survey, but increasingly a conscious recognition of challenges facing the workforce and how they were impacting colleagues across the workforce.
One of my regrets in these roles is that I never did enough. Working predominantly in the care sector during this time, there was always a more pressing issue: austerity and significant budget cuts, high turnover of staff sucking budgets into induction, staff shortages, increased compliance training.
I think the pandemic has shone an even greater light for most of us onto the issues of mental health and wellbeing both in the workplace and outside. From an L&D perspective, it may be that the rapid adoption of digital learning solutions for many organisations frees up some capacity and budget.
But what are the solutions? In this podcast I spoke with the fantastic Tracy Douthwaite of https://www.waytowellbeing.co.uk about what organisations can do. If you’re not too familiar with the topic, Tracy goes through the basic steps an organisation or a manager could take.
My thanks to Tracy for being so generous with her time and insight.