Championing mental health at work: emerging practice from innovative projects in the UK

Abstract

SUMMARYThis paper examines the value of participatory approaches within interventions aimed at promoting mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. Specifically the paper explores data from the thematic evaluation of the Mental Health and Employment project strand within the Altogether Better programme being implemented in England in the Yorkshire and Humber region, which was funded through the BIG Lottery and aimed to empower people across the region to lead better lives. The evaluation combined a systematic evidence review with semi-structured interviews across mental health and employment projects. Drawing on both evaluation elements, the paper examines the potential of workplace-based 'business champions' to facilitate organizational culture change within enterprises within a deprived regional socio-economic environment. First, the paper identifies key policy drivers for interventions around mental health and employment, summarizes evidence review findings and describes the range of activities within three projects. The role of the 'business champion' emerged as crucial to these interventions and therefore, secondly, the paper examines how champions' potential to make a difference depends on the work settings and their existing roles, skills and motivation. In particular, champions can proactively coordinate project strands, embed the project, encourage participation, raise awareness, encourage changes to work procedures and strengthen networks and partnerships. The paper explores how these processes can facilitate changes in organizational culture. Challenges of implementation are identified, including achieving leverage with senior management, handover of ownership to fellow employees, assessing impact and sustainability. Finally, implications for policy and practice are discussed, and conclusions drawn concerning the roles of champions within different workplace environments.

Workplace Wellbeing Groups and Champions: A remedy for lack of human resource for workplace wellbeing functions?

“…However, research has revealed that organizational culture specific factors may be key determinants of the effectiveness of organization-wide interventions focusing on mental health and wellbeing. Hence addressing unique organizational needs through creation of a 'healthy organization culture' and adopting a participatory and non-stigmatizing approach are identified as effective systemic methods (8). It is thus essential to acknowledge the full picture of the workplace environment and impact of the employee experience by putting employees at the centre.…”

“…Pioneering this task under the Helping Great Britain Work Well Strategy, the Health and Safety Executive of United Kingdom (UK) has introduced Wellbeing Champion Program (WCP) in workplaces as a novel approach to implement employee wellbeing programs in the UK (8)(9). The wellbeing or business champions are identified as drivers to forward organizational change with the aim of producing a culture that promotes wellbeing specific to the respective work setting.…”

“…Wellbeing champion is a member of staff employed by an organization who is supported to design, deliver and perhaps evaluate healthy workplace programmes (8). The champion is a self-identified employee who value health and wellbeing, has a genuine interest in supporting their colleagues and want to promote a 'grassroots' approach to wellness programs.…”

“…Combined systemic approaches working at both organizational and individual level to foster healthy organizations and sustain individual wellbeing worked particularly well if they were also participatory and followed a bottom-up approach (8).…”

Assessing the Feasibility and Pre-Post Impact Evaluation of the Beta (Test) Version of the BeUpstanding Champion Toolkit in Reducing Workplace Sitting: Pilot Study (Preprint)

“…The key adaption was the transfer of intervention implementation and evaluation from the research team to a workplace champion. This "train the champion" approach recognises that workplace champions, as the role models and drivers, are critical for successful and sustainable workplace change [11][12][13]. Notably, the translation of the Stand Up Australia intervention into a scalable and sustainable workplace health and safety program involves multiple phases [14].…”