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- All employees need a place where they can be authentic and vulnerable – without fear of retribution, losing their job or missing out on promotion – without it affecting their career.
- All employees need a place where they can be authentic and vulnerable – without fear of retribution, losing their job or missing out on promotion – without it affecting their career.
It was one of those moments when everything changes. A terrible accident, impacting lives forever. Repercussions and ripples fanning out like aftershocks. Wendy McCristal was caught in one of those ripples. Her story – of stress, burnout and recovery – holds lessons for us all.
A high-profile rail engineer, Wendy, was investigating a major incident that killed seven and injured 61. It nearly broke her. One year on, Wendy walked out. The Superwoman mask she’d been clinging to for months slipped, fell and shattered. She could take no more.
Wendy needed a mechanism to download and process her emotions. She just wanted her boss to say: “I understand. Take some time out. Let’s arrange for you to talk to someone.” The emotional burden was suffocating.
Her company, while technically competent, totally failed to provide suitable emotional support. That said, there seems to be growing recognition across the industry of a critical and urgent need for non-technical skills training such as listening, supporting others and workload management.
So what can employers learn from Wendy’s experience? Three things stand out.
1. Address the gender dimension
Women in full-time employment are nearly twice as likely as full-time employed men to experience common mental health difficulties (19.8% v 10.9%).
Many working mothers still shoulder a ‘double burden’ and, without high reserves of testosterone, power through on cortisol. This can lead to burn-out and attrition.
Wendy explains: “I was one of the men. I was a strong, independent, go-getting woman that could be leaned on. And I was trying to keep that up, every day.”
She wells up at the memories, but then she smiles: “That’s OK. It’s just tears!” Wendy has learned that her vulnerability is actually her source of authentic strength and courage.
2. Invest in coaching and management support
The overall statistics on mental health are alarming. In the UK, one in six people experience mental health problems in the workplace and up to an eighth of all sickness absence days can be attributed to mental health conditions.
All employees need a place where they can be authentic and vulnerable – without fear of retribution, losing their job or missing out on promotion – without it affecting their career.
Invest in coaching and management training to recognise and offer better emotional support. If necessary buy in services from outside, so that people can be fully expressed at work and not carry their stress home with them.
3. Embrace a culture shift to make change stick
There is an opportunity here to shift cultures from competitiveness to collaboration. We can teach people to say: “Who will help me?” rather than “I have to do this alone.”
Simple, if not easy. Transformation can happen by placing greater value on collaboration in the workplace, embracing and valuing skills that traditionally women excel in. That could bring about a more balanced and better work environment for everyone.
I’d vote for that! Wouldn’t you?
Wendy knows how to make change and how to make change stick. So she herself has now set up the Mental Wealth Café in her local area, a space where industries can share and learn from each other to manage mental health better within their businesses.
