The health and wellbeing of our people has always been a high priority for Pritchard Francis. As consultants, we understand our true value lies within our people. Maintaining a mentally healthy workplace, is essential to ensuring our people feel accepted, respected, and supported.
Our research into mental health in the workplace highlighted the need for an integrated approach, focusing on primary, secondary, and tertiary elements. First and foremost, primary elements include identifying and managing exposure to workplace stressors. Secondary is the provision of resources to help employees become resilient and manage these potential stressors. Finally, tertiary elements are the resources available to alleviate mental health problems and provide ongoing support. This tiered approach establishes workplace goals that are simultaneously preventative, supportive, and reactive. It provides the greatest opportunity for our firm to address work related mental health conditions and has led to numerous initiatives being implemented within our workplace.
Our Primary Initiatives
As a means of identification, we began to specifically track the overall wellness of our people through regular employee surveys. These surveys included the WHO-5, a five-question survey based on the World Health Organisation’s scale for general wellbeing.
In tackling work-life balance, we implemented change in the way we structure our workdays. This flexibility provides greater opportunity for our people to achieve a healthy balance and can help relieve stress for our people and their families.
In addition, our improved performance review process encourages individuals to personalise their core role to incorporate their interests and build on their strengths and goals. This process aims to increase overall job satisfaction, motivation, and career growth.
Our Secondary Initiatives
One of our longest standing initiatives is our Working Life Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which provides confidential and professional counselling to all Pritchard Francis employees. Unlike standard assistance programs, our EAP includes additional services on top of professional counselling, including career coaching and workplace training sessions.
We regularly host team discussions around mental health awareness. These discussions are essential for reducing stigma and promoting a supportive and understanding culture.
Our Tertiary Initiatives
We are very proud to have become a Mental Health First Aid Skilled Workplace, with 10 of our employees undertaking training to become dedicated Mental Health First Aid Officers. Establishing a Mental Health First Aid Program can contribute significantly to reducing the stigma around mental health struggles and create a cultural shift in the awareness and understanding of wellbeing.
Our suite of initiatives is championed by our Chief Executive Office, Arthur Psaltis. As a Mental Health Ambassador for Consult Australia, Arthur is acutely aware of the importance of workplaces being proactive in reducing and tackling job related stress. Through our Consult Australia membership and Arthur’s ambassadorship, we have had access to a wealth of mental health resources and support information. We have found the support materials available from Consult Australia invaluable along our journey and have been actively promoting them to both our employees and other businesses: https://www.consultaustralia.com.au/
Moving forward, we will continue to improve our workplace to ensure we maintain a supportive and mentally healthy work environment where our people feel happy and healthy.
