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I first became aware of the importance of workplace mental health because I came from
the legal profession. Sadly, up to one in three lawyers are affected by debilitating
anxiety or depression in their working life and, with that, goes all of the problems of
drug abuse and self-harm. And so, very early in the piece, I was aware of what that was
doing to my profession, and of course, what it does right across other workplaces in various
industries. There is no question that there is a direct link between productivity and
mental health in business.
One of the things that we came across in the legal profession was the concept of "presenteeism."
You know what absenteeism... People don't turn up. The other problem with mental health
is people do arrive. They're present at work but they're absent mentally. They're absent
emotionally. And they sit there frozen into inaction. There are some really simple steps
an employer can take to make sure that they're doing everything to enhance mental health
in the workplace. One of those simple steps is to create flexible working arrangements.
A company's attitude towards employee wellbeing is absolutely essential when you're wanting
to attract top applicants. The reason being is that those applicants who can, frankly,
get jobs anywhere because they are at the top of their game, want to go to an environment,
a culture, where work-life balance is recognised, where downtime's recognised, when celebrating
success is recognised. All of those things create an environment that supports good mental
health. It, also, creates a very attractive environment for top calibre candidates.
The Heads Up initiative has come at a very important time for Australian business and
industry. We know, statistically, that mental health issues are alive and well in our workplace.
And, yet, so many employers aren't comfortable and aren't equipped to deal with them. So
this Heads Up action plan campaign is so important to bring a much needed toolkit to employers.