According to our research, just 18% of UK employees think their workplace does enough to support mental wellbeing. Of course, this may be a problem of perception: some organisations may well have a wealth of support that employees don’t know about. Digging deeper into our research, however, we saw something else: a clear gap between the support offered and the support employees actually want.

Gaining real understanding around the issues being experienced by employees is the first step to meeting their needs and improving workforce mental health. This is why we developed Flourish, an ethics committee-approved and clinically endorsed benchmarking tool designed to give employers a deep understanding of the mental wellbeing of their workforce - and crucially, employee and clinical feedback on the fit and effectiveness of your current support provisions.

But, armed with all this data, where should HR and wellbeing leaders go from there? How do you apply these insights, to create an ecosystem of support that is tailored to your organisation and enables every employee to flourish? Why and how should you think beyond an EAP and Mental Health First Aiders? What does a preventative approach look like? What about help for staff outside work? Where does digital support fit?

A mental wellbeing gap in wellbeing frameworks

We assumed, given the high profile of mental health in the workplace and the established links between an organisation’s mental wellbeing support and big issues like retention, recruitment and morale, that there would be countless guides enabling HR and wellbeing teams to build all-encompassing support systems. While we found a good number, we didn’t find exactly what we were looking for.

Most frameworks cover wellbeing from an overall perspective - as mental health specialists we feel employers need a deeper insight into employee mental wellbeing

Frameworks with a greater focus on mental health were quite theoretical - we believe HR and Wellbeing leaders want a practical ‘how to’ guide

We want to see clearer guidance on what is needed for a prevention and early intervention - a major gap in consideration and investment

As digital mental health experts we really wanted to help readers differentiate between different digital mental wellbeing options - especially when it comes to which are likely to be most effective

We really wanted to see frameworks raise awareness that an employee’s mental health and needs are not limited to their place of work and work hours - support needs to extend to the home

Perhaps most surprisingly given what user data tells us about the need for flexibility and user choice - none of the existing guides we found incorporated digital support

Finally, we feel that employers need tools for continual improvement - we wanted to see how to set up a reporting dashboard, how to build a business case for investment and a way to express ROI.

The mental wellbeing framework toolkit employers can use

So… we wrote our own. We believe this blueprint provides the most practical framework and well-informed toolkit for creating a needs-based mental health and wellbeing support ecosystem there is.

You’ll see where to start, options for gathering data and a clear step-by-step process to follow to ensure that you have the right support in place for a flourishing, resilient and incredibly well-supported workforce.

Download the workplace mental wellbeing Framework Toolkit

UNDERSTAND: We show you how to use tools like Flourish to identify your workforce's need, assess your current capability gaps and set mental wellbeing specific strategy.

SUPPORT: We set out how to structure a plan that covers culture, clinically-guided options and employee engagement.

IMPROVE: How to show you KPI and reporting options, how to track improvement and tools to help build a business case for investment in improvements. 

Get the Frameworks toolkit here: https://work.kooth.com/blueprint-for-workplace-mental-wellbeing-strategy