Mental health is a topic that affects everyone – whether that’s your Mum, a friend, your boss or the checkout attendant in Tesco. We’ve all been through difficult times. We’ve all struggled. We’ve all tried to get ourselves out of a “rut” or to overcome what feels like an impossible situation.
Mostly, we manage to do it – we turn to a friend, we make sure to take time to reflect and we might even seek professional help.
We try to identify what is making us so unhappy and to do something about it.
But life isn’t that simple, nor that easy. Not everyone has a network of people around them. Not everyone has the time, money or confidence to turn to a therapist. Not everyone has the constant “resilience” needed to just keep on going and hope for better times ahead… sometimes it’s just all too much.
We get it. But we all need to do more about it.
That’s why we’re taking some purposeful steps towards not only talking about mental health, but taking action too.
This week we’re really proud to have signed the Mindful Employer Charter.
By signing this charter, we have made an on-going commitment to:
- Provide non-judgemental and proactive support to team members experiencing mental ill health.
- Not make assumptions about a person with a mental health condition and their ability to work.
- Be positive and enabling towards all of the team (including new applicants) with a mental health condition.
- Support team managers in managing mental health in the workplace.
- Ensure we are fair in the recruitment of new staff in accordance with the Equality Act (2010).
- Make it clear that people who have experienced mental ill health will not be discriminated against, and that disclosure of a mental health problem will enable both the team member and the company to assess and provide the right level of support or adjustment.
But this is just the start.
It would be easy to sign this piece of paper and leave it there.
Instead, over the coming weeks, Virtalent will be announcing some exciting plans which I know will make Virtalent stand out – not for having a pretty website, or boasting about the funds it raised from investors, but for making an unwavering commitment to the mental health of everyone the company has an impact on.
We’ll be doing more to support our clients, VAs and internal team than almost any company I can think of, especially in the B2B space. Watch this space.
