This article was first published in First Voice. Written by Becky Wright, owner, New Leaf Life Design.
The pressures of running a small business may leave owners with little capacity to consider employee health in a strategic or even reactive way. The relative rarity of a small business employee requiring health support may further reduce the priority of workforce health.
While on an individual basis, a small business owner-manager may appreciate the human and moral case for supporting employee health, business reasons could be less apparent. It is important to clearly outline the business case for investing in workforce health, in a way that reflects the perspectives and context of small businesses.
Encourage conversations about wellbeing
Wellbeing conversations are:
- Caring and compassionate – they give space for employees to holistically explore wellbeing
- Employee-led – they enable the employee to lead the conversation and focus on the most important things to them
- Supportive – they signpost employees to the most appropriate support
- Ongoing and dynamic – wellbeing changes over time, so these conversations should be held regularly
- Inclusive – every employee should have ongoing supportive conversations that enable their unique and diverse personal wellbeing needs to be met.
Know where to find help
Find out locally where your employees can go to access counselling and support. FSB members can access confidential support for mental health conditions from a team of experienced nurses through FSB Care.
Encourage training
Train a member of staff as a mental health first aider or become Mental Health Aware. You can attend a short three-hour course that provides a wellbeing toolkit for SMEs, or a four-hour course certified by Mental Health First Aid England. You can also choose to become a fully-fledged mental health first aider by attending our two-day course.
Look after your own wellbeing
There can be a lot of challenges involved in working for yourself. Whether you’re on your own or freelancing in a larger organisation, it can be easy to forget to add your own wellbeing to the list of things you need to attend to. Simple steps can help:
- Attend networking events. Having ultimate responsibility and knowing the buck stops with you can be a lonely place. Talk to someone, rather than sending an email
- Take a project management approach to wellbeing. Take a few moments to write down some elements for maintaining your wellbeing
- Take control of your working hours, spend time offline, and have boundaries between work and home. Technology can blur those boundaries and make you feel as though you need to be ‘always on’
- Try and stay present. So many of us worry about the future and the past, but we can’t control the past – and the future hasn’t happened yet
Think about what you can outsource, delegate or say ‘no’ to. Some tasks may not need your expertise and could easily be done by others, while others may not be a priority or of significant benefit, and saying ‘no’ could be the best approach.
Organise green wellbeing pause points
We all know how beneficial nature can be for our mental wellbeing, but how often do we interact with it during the working week? Escape the office for an hour and meet with your team for a wellbeing walk in the local area. Try to ensure that you have one meeting in nature, with nature or by nature each week.