When a business embarks on the challenging but rewarding journey to build and maintain a mentally healthy workplace, our members often ask, ‘should we have a mental health policy?’.

The short answer is ‘yes’. The positive changes that are introduced and maintained within a business should be clearly documented and available to all employees.

Some employers choose to write a single mental health policy, while others integrate mental health into a range of existing safety and HR policies. While every business is unique, requiring different solutions, the latter is often recommended.

If your business wishes to normalise mental health as a topic and embed it into the way you do business, it makes sense to integrate it into your existing policy suite rather than create a standalone document.

Here are some key areas where your business should document its approach to mental health:

Health safety and well-being statement of commitment

Most businesses have an overarching safety values statement that describes their commitment to safety, typically signed by the owner/MD/CEO and displayed in prominent locations. This statement should acknowledge that your business is equally committed to both physical and psychological health and safety.

Incident reporting

Your workplace’s system for reporting hazards, incidents, near misses and injuries should be configured in a way that allows mental health incidents to be reported. This addresses a common problem many businesses face where employees are exposed to significant mental health risks, but the incident database only contains references to slips, trips, falls, musculoskeletal injuries etc.

First aid

Many businesses have chosen to have trained Mental Health First Aid Officers on site to augment their traditional first-aid arrangements for physical injuries. While this is not necessary for all employers, it is something your business should consider if you are a large organisation; deal with distressing subject matter; or have experienced incidents in the past where someone in your workplace (employee or visitor) has experienced a mental health crisis.

If you do have Mental Health First Aid Officers, all relevant details about who they are, how to contact them, how to become one, training requirements etc. should be contained within your first aid policy.

Induction and training

Proactive businesses will have a training plan that outlines who needs to be trained in what topics and when in order to be able to work safely.

At a minimum, every business should provide regular mental health training for their managers so they have the necessary skills to pick up on early warning signs, intervene effectively, manage mental health risks in the workplace, etc.

Additionally, we recommend periodically training senior leadership teams with content tailored to their interests and responsibilities, as well as awareness training for employees.

The details of which mental health training employees should receive and how often should be detailed in your safety training and induction policy.

Safety auditing

Every business, regardless of size and industry, must conduct regular safety checks in order to identify hazards and maintain a safe working environment.

In lower risk environments, this could be as simple as a biannual office safety check to identify slip, trip and fall hazards or testing and tagging of equipment. In higher risk environments, this could be daily pre-start checklists for high-risk machinery.

Conducting regular auditing of common mental health risk factors in the workplace is the most effective approach for businesses who are serious about reducing mental health risk exposure. Read more about how and why your business should be conducting mental health audits here.

Your safety auditing policy should also describe how you measure mental health hazards, which survey tool you use, who is responsible for completing it and by when.

Risk management

Many medium-to-large businesses will maintain an organisational risk register so senior leaders and managers can maintain a clear overview of key safety risks affecting the business and the control measures in place.

Many members and clients of the Victorian Chamber report poor mental health as being a significant organisational risk factor, and yet (as with the incident database) it is nowhere to be seen on the organisational risk register, and therefore flies under the radar at senior management and executive level.

If your business has an effective system for reporting mental health incidents and scheduled mental health hazard auditing, this information should be included in your organisational risk register.

Employee assistance program (EAP)

If your business provides employees with free confidential counselling through an EAP, your policy should include all relevant information about the support available through your EAP, the benefits of making contact, and the various ways to do so.

Make sure your employees understand the full scope of services available. Many employees are aware that their employer offers an EAP, but don’t know that it can be used for a range of services such as health advice, career planning or financial guidance (services vary depending on your provider).

If your business doesn’t have an EAP, that’s okay. You can familiarise your employees with the broad range of free, community-based support services available, such as Beyond Blue, Sane, or the Black Dog Institute, to name a few.

Rehabilitation, return to work and job modification

All employers should have a policy that outlines their commitment to supporting ill and injured employers to remain at work or return to work, regardless of whether their injury is work-related or not.

While this policy does not specifically need to refer to mental health, it’s a good idea to check your language and ensure that your wording does not suggest that support is available purely for physical injuries and illnesses.

This list is not exhaustive and every employer is different.

We recommend that all employers go through their safety and HR policies with a simple question in mind: ‘Have we considered how both the physical and mental health of our employees may be impacted by this particular risk’?

More information

The Victorian Chamber’s Health, Safety and Wellbeing team offer a comprehensive range of mental health training and consulting services to help you get your mental health strategy right in 2021.

For more information, HSW consulting, training and other support please contact us on 03 8662 5333 or hsw@victorianchamber.com.au to discuss your needs.