In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Week, our HR Director, Catherine Orezzi tells us what Rendall & Rittner is doing to support mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.
The busyness of our daily lives means that, for many people, taking time to invest in mental wellbeing is often a low priority. In 2021, we wanted to make sure we keep wellbeing at the top of the agenda. We have a wellbeing strategy with a focus on a different area of wellbeing each quarter. This quarter, we are concentrating on stress awareness, Mental Health Awareness Week and men’s health. Mental health concerns impact one quarter of people every year, and even more of us could benefit from dedicating more time to our wellbeing. We believe it is extremely important to ensure our staff are happy and healthy and wellbeing strategy supports this. Mental Health Awareness Week (running from the 10th to 16th May this year) is the ideal time to re-evaluate our relationship with our mental health. The theme for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is nature, which many have found to be vital for their mental health during the pandemic.
To coincide with this year’s nature theme, we have chosen a tree to represent nature and demonstrate some of the issues in all our lives that can impact our mental health. The branches of the tree show the things that we can see - friends, family, colleagues, work, social life, health.
The roots of the tree are the aspects of our lives that not everyone can see – such as our hopes and fears, values and how we make decisions. These are parts of our lives that can impact our mental health. In times of change, we often easily adapt on a surface level but it’s often the deep-rooted things that can affect our wellbeing.
We are running a number of activities to involve everyone in Mental Health Awareness Week, including promoting our ‘Nature Bingo’ activity to encourage people to get out and explore the great. outdoors. We are also launching our Stress Awareness and Creating Positive Mental Health at Work e-learning training. To make sure wellbeing stays at the top of the agenda, we are introducing a Wellbeing Steering Group to ensure our wellbeing strategies and practices are regularly reviewed.
On Friday 14th May, “Green Day”, we are encouraging everyone to wear something green and make a small donation to our employee chosen charity, Mind through our Virgin Money page. to Mind. Mind is a UK-based charity that aims to support and empower those experiencing a mental health problem, through campaigns to improve relevant services, and by increasing the accessibility of useful advice and information.
