How employers can support their teams’ mental health and wellbeing

MAKING A DIFFERENCE that matters

MAS Business Advisory Manager Shaun Phelan takes a look at how employers can support their teams’ mental health and wellbeing.

NEW ZEALAND HAS emerged from the strict COVID-19 lockdown restrictions imposed in March and April. Challenges still lie ahead for many businesses, including the need to help their staff deal with the stress and anxiety about what comes next.

Your staff are your greatest asset and their mental and emotional wellbeing has a major impact on the overall success of your practice. So what can you do to help those who need support?

WORKING TOGETHER AND PROVIDING SUPPORT

As an employer, there’s only so much you can do to help an employee who’s dealing with difficult situations at home. What you can do, however, is ensure that their workplace is a safe, supportive and positive environment.

We offered some suggestions for how to make this happen in the July issue of VetScript. Our suggestions included regularly thanking your staff for their work, communicating clearly with your team and being open to their feedback. Other ideas that are easy to implement include taking time out to do a daily quiz together at morning tea or organising a team trip to the movies or dinner every now and then.

TALKING ONE-ON-ONE

Talking freely with staff about mental health issues is a good idea, but it can be difficult to know how to raise the subject with someone.

Before you start, it’s important to be clear in your own mind what you’re concerned about and the best way to have the conversation. Choosing to talk in the middle of a busy day in a public place is probably not going to be appropriate. Make sure you and the staff member set aside some free time to talk properly without distractions, and perhaps take the conversation off site.

To broach the subject, you might want to keep it informal, and start by asking simple questions such as: » is everything okay with you? » how are things at home? Be supportive and listen. The best approach is usually to keep things focused on what you can do to help in practical terms. For example, you might ask whether they have someone to talk to, or what the workplace can do to ease their workload. Take what they reveal seriously.

FINDING WAYS FOR THE PRACTICE TO HELP

It can be hard to work out whether an employee’s stress or anxiety is due to issues in their personal life or their work life (or sometimes both).

However, as an employer you’re required to provide a healthy and safe workplace under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. This includes supporting employees’ mental health, so if there’s something in the workplace that’s exacerbating the problem, you need to deal with it.

In addition to meeting the basic legal requirements, you should think about other support your practice can offer. For example, you could provide contact details for counselling support, change the staff member’s hours or duties for a short time, provide flexible working arrangements or arrange for them to have time away from busy areas in the practice. Just remember, though, that any solutions you offer need to be sustainable.

RETURNING TO WORK

If your employee needed to take time off for their mental wellbeing, make sure, when the time comes to return to work, that they provide you with medical certification that they are fit to return and, if necessary, work with them to plan their return.

Your employee may feel vulnerable and anxious about how their colleagues will react to their return. Make sure

you discuss who can be told about the situation, how much information they’re happy to have shared, and how their return to work will play out week by week. Remember, employees are entitled to their privacy, so you need to store their health information securely and share it only with those who need to know or whom the employee has agreed to have informed.

If the case is serious, your employee may not be able to return to work at all, or at least not be able to return to their previous role. We recommend that in situations like these you speak to your human resources advisor or our MAS HealthyPractice team before taking any action.

This article is of a general nature and is not a substitute for professional and individually tailored business or legal advice. © Medical Assurance Society New Zealand Limited 2020. For more information about managing mental health issues in the workplace, or for immediate support for staff members with mental issues, visit:

business.govt.nz – Managing mental health in the workplace.www.business. govt.nz/news/managing-mental-health-in-the-workplace Open Minds – Let’s Make Mental Health Part of the Conversation: A guide for managers.www.mentalhealth.org.nz/assets/Uploads/Guide-for-managersApril-2017.pdf the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand:www.mentalhealth.org.nz the National Telehealth Service – Need to talk?: Free call 0800 1737 1737 or text 1737 anytime for support from a trained counsellor,www.1737.org.nz Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757 – 8am to midnight Lifeline:0800 543 354 – 24-hour telephone counselling service Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 TAUTOKO (828 865) – includes when someone is concerned about the wellbeing of someone else Healthline: 0800 611 116

Samaritans:0800 726 666

Youthline: 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz

If it’s an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.

Order your copy now!

Ectoparasites of sheep in New Zealand and their control

The definitive practical guide for sheep veterinarians, edited by Anthony Oswald.

The first edition of “Ectoparasites of Sheep in New Zealand and their control” was produced in 1985 at the instigation of the Committee of the NZVA Sheep and Beef Cattle Society. That, copies of this volume are still found in many veterinary practices and referred to by practitioners across New Zealand, some 33 years after its publication, is testament to the quality of the information prepared by the contributors and collated by the editor, Dr W.A.G. Charleston. While knowledge of the fundamentals of parasite and host biology remain much the same as in 1985, insecticide resistance, new chemical families, market imperatives and the economics of livestock farming are among factors that have brought change. This has resulted in many sheep farmers failing to achieve acceptable levels of control of ectoparasites, in particular blowflies and lice, in their flocks.

New Zealand price* (GST inclusive) Retail (1 copy) NZ$35

*Excludes postage and handling Ectoparasites of sheep in New Zealand and their control (Book order form) Visit www.nzva.org.nz/ectobook or complete order form below

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“As with the 1985 edition, while this book has been written primarily with veterinarians in mind, it is hoped it will be of value to other people involved in sheep ectoparasite control at practical levels.” Anthony Oswald