Building Blocks for Cooperative Action

A Shared Interest

TARGET sought to bring employers, industry sectors, associations and professional organizations together to learn from each other and ‘normalize’ the idea that employers have a vital and shared interest in promoting workplace mental health.

Several employers active in the TARGET campaign volunteered to share information with other employers and took part in a Special Report on various initiatives:

Unilever

Unilever launched a Mental Wellbeing and Resilience Campaign in the UK and Ireland, including an online portal as a one-stop-shop for all resources related to wellbeing.

Deutsche Post DHL

Deutsche Post DHL implemented an overall health strategy founded on a one principle of ‘Respect and Results’ to guide decision-making and shape corporate culture.

British Telecom (BT)

British Telecom (BT) launched a three-tier framework combining prevention, intervention and rehabilitation. All employees receive a BT Mental Health Toolkit to access resources.

As a result of its pioneering initiatives – under the leadership of Dr. Paul Litchfield – BT saw a meaningful return on investment and measurable improvements in employees’ quality of life. For example:

• 30% reductions in sickness absence rates due to mental health problems
• 68% of employees learned something new about ways to look after their mental health
• 51% of employees noticed improvements in their mental wellbeing

BUPA

BUPA, a historic UK specialist in the delivery of employee health benefits, is actively supporting a powerful program for employers, including a system of public reporting on mental health.

Lundbeck

Lundbeck introduced a state-of-the-art initiative called ‘Mental Health at Work’, a new program for their employees who suffer from a mental illness including presentations, guidelines, training and much more to promote a good psychological working environment.

Joint Action for Mental Health

Meanwhile, as part of a European Commission project, the BKK Federal Association, non-profit insurance enterprise, in Berlin, leads joint government-employer action on mental health in six workplaces.

BKK has done a “SWOT” analysis of psychological health in its own workplace and developed a guide for managers and workers to ‘take the stress out of stress’ – providing a step-by-step guide to workers for improving their own mental health.

More Building Blocks

Royal Mail

Dr. Shaun Davis, head of occupational health and safety for Royal Mail, has already adapted the CEO Leadership Guidelines into a form of more value to this professional group.

Sir Cary Cooper

Sir Cary Cooper has brought together 22 top employers in the UK, many of which have global operations, engaging chief medical officers and human resource executives to drive changes to policies and practices.

European Brain Council

An especially unique initiative supported by TARGET, has the European Brain Council working with Canada’s “Partners for Mental Health” to advance open discourse on mental health in the workplace.

“Thrive London”

In late 2016, TARGET was contacted by City Hall officials in London after the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, announced a new Roadmap to make mental health a priority in that great city and develop a more unified approach across London.

Inspired by similar work in New York City, the initiative is called ‘THRIVE LONDON’ and brings together partners across London to address six priority areas:

• Improving everyone’s understanding of mental health
• Mental health of children and youth
• Mental health and employment
• Suicide prevention
• Community resilience
• Vulnerable people

Conclusion

In Search of a Breakthrough

A Global Prevention Plan as the principal means to calm the mental health crisis that has reached around the world is now a plausible idea. We have new science with more to come. We have powerful business awareness as a basis for long-term investments in research, relief of suffering and economic cost.

The timing for such an initiative is right. Therefore, Mental Health International and the Chief Scientist of Quebec, will embark upon consultations internationally in search of what it will take to produce a breakthrough in the management and treatment of mental disorders over the next ten years.

Essentially, the prevention of risk and early onset; disability and premature death; business costs and economic loss; human suffering on a global scale; and the loss of productive capacity among women and men in their prime years of work. We aim to conclude this in time for the G-7 meeting being hosted by Canada in 2018.