The most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics survey on mental health of ages from 16 to 85 showed that 20% of Australians experienced anxiety, depressive, or substance use disorders. Just reflect on that.

1 in 5 people experience a diagnosable mental health disorder in any year.

It is not surprising that there is growing awareness of the duty of care requirements on workplaces in assisting people who experience a mental health disorder. To assist our clients, The H Factor have developed a sample Mental Health and Wellness policy.

There are number of things employers must consider in this area:

• Crisis situations - what to do if someone is in a mental health crisis, and they, or others, are at risk of physical harm;
• The Privacy and anti-discrimination requirements of the employer, and other employees, in working with mental health disorders in the workplace;
• Assisting employees experiencing a mental health disorder; and
• Information about training and learning to give mental health first-aid.

The H Factor draft policy incorporates all of these areas, and your H Agent can also assist you to tailor each area to your particular business situation.

There is a lot of misinformation and stigma about mental health disorders. Increasingly, employers of all sizes are recognising that they have an important role to play in raising awareness of the correct approach to dealing with mental health disorders, and in removing the stigma associated with them.

Some practical tips that are relevant to assisting people with a mental health condition are:

• Recognise that it is not your role to diagnose their condition;
• Remember that mental health conditions do not discriminate - they can impact people from all backgrounds in life, income levels, and social status;
• Be aware that you cannot force a person to take action, unless it is a crisis situation where their phsyical safety or that of others is at imminent risk;
• Avoid making judgmental statements to them, or about them, or about their condition;
• Seek to understand what is going on for them, rather than seek to fix things for them;
• Maintain their privacy at all times;
• Do not engage in gossip with others about them; and
• Encourage them to seek professional help.

Most people who receive appropriate help recover from a mental health condition.

Employers are required to make reasonable adjustments to a person's work arrangements during a persons treatment and/or recovery period.

Headsup, by Beyond Blue, have some useful information for employers here and a helpful guide for for helping a work mate here. This is a good starting point for understanding the workplace issues.

Workplaces have long recognised the need for designated first aid officers, who are appropriately trained to respond to physical injury or a health crisis. We recommend that employers also consider having a designated mental health first aid officer in their workplace. Accredited training is provided by Mental Health First Aid Australia, a not for profit organisation that provides evidence based accreditation courses on mental health first aid.

There is a wide range of support and information available. We recommend that every employer have clear policies and procedures in the area of mental health.

Beyond the duty of care that arises in employment situations, it is a good business decision to have clear policies and procedures in the area of mental health and well being.

We are pleased to release our first ever annual report.

For many businesses, including ours, 2020 was a year that presented many challenges as we all had to come to terms with the economic and social impacts of COVID-19. From these challenges came opportunities for us to learn, adapt, develop, and grow.

Please download our report to learn more about how we see our place in the future or work, and how we plan to continue to grow our system based on the human aspects of work.

Many thanks to our clients, licensees, and supporters in our network who have been so supportive on our business journey.

Happy new year, and all the best to you for 2021.

We face challenges. The world has changed, and how we respond is important. Intrinsically we know this to be true. There's part of us that knows we have an opportunity to make changes in our business, and actually balance our lives a bit.

Covid has changed our workplaces. It's forced us to adapt the way we work, the tools we use to work, how we collaborate with our colleagues, and even the way we serve our customers. For many of us, there just aren't as many customers either. Business is difficult, and especially when we face economic uncertainty.

It can be uncomfortable to confront, as we don't like the uncertainty, we might be anxious about our future, and it might seem that there's so much outside of our control.

In corporate speak; "we are facing headwinds".

It's time to click it down a gear or two and make the pedaling a bit easier. You can't change the wind, but there are other choices. You can react, rebuild, or retreat.

We are seeing all of our clients facing these choices at the moment. It can feel lonely, but actually many people are asking the same questions, facing similar dilemmas, and looking for the right gear. That's why we have started a webinar series. You're welcome to join the conversation  with our H Agent's and other business owners who are also working their way through change.

Our advice to business owners is to turn off the news, block out the complainers, analyse your business strengths, make the time to think deeply about what you'd like to achieve for (and from) your business, and find people who can help you rather than judge you.

An H Agent can help you find your right gear. We're working beside our clients to:

• Re-imagine their business in its new perfect form, and forming their new vision of success;
• Identify the desired outcomes, relevant for the new normal, for every position in the business;
• Engage their people in a conversation on how they will achieve those outcomes; and
• Build shared accountability with their team for achieving a healthy balance between business results and personal well being.

The winds will change, and one day there will be tail winds. How we respond now will set how fast we can go when the winds turn. Now it's time to face the uncertainty and deal with it on our own terms. It starts with you.

There's an elephant in the room, Karen. It's sitting right there on the sofa, getting very comfortable. For goodness sake, don't give it the remote control, especially "in these uncertain times".

Do you see it? It's sitting right there, at the end of that last paragraph. It's hiding in plain sight, so we put some quotation marks around it so that you can spot it more easily.

When were "times" ever certain?

There is no doubt, that nobody is untouched by change. It's been forced on us in a way we rarely have to experience here in Australia. However, that does not make the world less certain than it was before. In some ways the reverse is true - we have now have more rules that influence our lives than we had before.

So why do we feel that everything is now more uncertain?

We are in a situation that very few of us ever imagined. We had our future mapped out in our heads, and it didn't include the risk of spreading a deadly virus. Nor did we imagine that we might have to practice social distancing from some of those we love, that we might have to change the way we work, or that even the act of getting food would need some form of reinvention.

We feel more uncertain because the future only ever existed in our own imaginations - and we never imagined it would be like this.

So now we will have to re-imagine it - and we have a choice.  We can give the elephant the remote control, or we can take control ourselves.
Giving the elephant the remote control means that we will just wait. We'll watch what the elephant wants us to watch, or play what the elephant wants us to play, when it feels like playing it - if it feels like playing it.

The feeling of uncertainty is because what we imagined turned out to be not what happened. Some of what we thought we would do, may not even be possible for some time. So now we can simply re-imagine it. We can take control of our own future, we can be realistic about what wasn't working before, and we can reset our compasses.

Change Agents, now is the time to lead. Let's imagine and communicate a better future, based on what we've learned recently.

We've learned that family and friends matter most, that having savings for a rainy day is a good idea, and that flexible working can 'work' well. Let's imagine working in ways that enhance our well-being, rather than taking from it.

How are we going to invent the future and make the world or work  better, because believe it or not, the elephant has no idea.

When C.S. Lewis published his wonderful work, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe in 1950 it was a part of a series; The Chronicles of Narnia. The inspiration for the series was the time when three children, that had been evacuated from London during the blitz, temporarily came to live with Lewis near Oxford for their protection from the bombs falling nightly on London. Through his story, Lewis provided a place where they, and us with them, could escape their isolation.

Lewis created the story of a magical kingdom, Narnia, that existed from within the wardrobe in the spare room. There the children flourished through adventure, discovery, and the strength of finding themselves and their abilities.

Many workers are now facing a new form of evacuation, as we deal with the wretched blitz of the Covid-19 virus. None of us have likely ever seen such a change in our society, businesses, family, and working arrangements. We've certainly never had to respond to such a situation, let alone so quickly.

For many, this now means working remotely with very limited social connection, beyond the distance of a screen. In a way, we are very similar to Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter, the characters that Lewis created, as we now effectively isolate to protect ourselves and others from this terrible virus that uses us to spread so easily.

Since very few of us just happened to have a ready home-office just waiting for this scenario, we have found ourselves hastily preparing a work station, probably similar to a study desk. Our workplaces arranged for the right connectivity and the video conferencing, and so we packed our necessities and headed home.

We are often told that people don't like change. Our new response to that can be to remind ourselves of just how adaptable we are.

Now there's just our families or house-mates, our screens, and maybe the dog. It wouldn't be a video call if there wasn't at least one bark in the background, reminding us that there is a life beyond the screen, the work, and the world that resides on the Internet. Yet now we have far greater limitations on interacting with that world.

Many from your team are in shock. They may feel isolated, and feel anxious as nobody can predict for how long this is going to last. These feelings change daily, sometimes even hourly, for all of us.

We've written before how humans are social beings and the importance of having social connection. The workplace has long been an important part of our social network, but now it is only two dimensional and is lacking so much because of that.

The study desk, the TV, and our phones have become our 'wardrobe'. They are where we find adventure and discovery. As managers, we now need to nurture our own capacity to find, embrace, and explore our unique capabilities, as well as encourage it in our teams.

So Change Agents - what we need to complete this analogy is a 'Lion'. Will that be you?  Will you be the one who uses this time to nurture the capacity of your team, and allow people the autonomy to find their unique contribution?

Will you be nurturing discretionary effort, or will you try to enforce compliance? Choose wisely.

There will be managers out there who are video calling their team regularly, just to check that they're working. Others will be calling to check and test that their authority is still in place. These managers are seeking control, and the problem with that is that it most often stifles creativity, willing contribution, and discretionary effort.

What everyone needs most right now, as we try to cope with the wickedness of a virus that uses our social strengths to cause such devastation, is our own time to process what is happening around us, how we can take care of ourselves, and still find a way to contribute to the things that matter to us.

When we made The H Factor system, we designed it around the things that people need in order to fully contribute to a meaningful purpose. Business for humans is our new tagline, because the system is designed around the natural human desires and the need for all leaders to nurture them. It has never been more important.

Please, take care of yourselves, your family, and your team. Stay well, and do all you can to limit the spread of this terrible virus.