MENTAL HEALTH
Insurance leaders must step up to tackle mental ill health
From leaders creating spaces for discussion to better communication of wellness programmes, there’s a long list of work that must be done to bring the industry up to speed on mental health initiatives.
The insurance industry has been “particularly poor” at embracing mental health initiatives, according to Stephen Card, chairman of Carbon Underwriting.
“We have to pull our socks up if we want to catch up with what’s happening elsewhere,” he said.
Speaking on a panel for Intelligent Insurer, Card added that it’s the leaders’ “absolute responsibility” to grasp mental health awareness and do something practical, rather than just put a tickbox exercise in place.
Katarina Archer, client services manager and wellbeing leader at HDI Global UK, agreed.
“It’s not just delegating jobs and doing peer reviews, it’s so much more now. This is not me saying ‘let’s put more pressure on managers’, but managers need to become leaders who are equipped to have these important conversations,” she said.
Kirsty Plank, volunteer at My Black Dog and session moderator, added that it was clear that mental health is such “an important issue for us to be thinking about at work, whether we’re a leader or wherever in the company”.
She added: “It is so important and it’s not something that businesses can afford to ignore.”
Communication and pain points
According to Carly Eggar, training and development consultant at Train and Assure, over time, the way organisations approach mental health has changed, for the better.
“A lot of organisations used to say: ‘let’s get some mental health first-aiders in and do some awareness’. That’s a brilliant start and I’m completely up for getting that initial base there.
“Managers need to become leaders who are equipped to have these important conversations.”
Katarina Archer, HDI Global UK
“But the analogy I use is that when you have driving lessons, you are learning how to pass your driving test. You learn how to drive when you’re allowed out on the open road on your own,” she said.
Eggar is beginning to see a similar set of ideas coming through organisations that have learned how to be first-aiders and how to identify when someone is struggling, but are unsure how to implement their learnings.
“What are our strategies, what are our policies, and are we communicating with our staff to find out what they want? Very often, the people who put these initiatives in place aren’t the ones who need them,” she added.
Archer agreed that it’s important to listen to employees to find out their pain points and what they’re struggling with.
When she began looking at this with her team, they discovered that insufficient processes and high workload were causing stress. Now, HDI is looking at how it can bring in automation and robotic solutions to support people’s workflow.
“Making processes and people’s work simpler is going to have a massive effect on people’s mental health,” she said.
“Very often, the people who put these initiatives in place aren’t the ones who need them.”
Carly Eggar, Train and Assure
Eggar advised that it’s key for companies to focus on communicating any initiatives to staff. As an example, she said, a big problem is that very often, while automating things is great, if that’s not communicated effectively you then have a group of employees who are concerned they soon may not have a job.
“That was never the intention, but because it was never communicated, the uncertainty starts to fester and that may cause mental ill health in some people,” she said. “So much of it is not necessarily what you’re going to do, it’s how well you communicate it to your staff.”
Card spoke about how Carbon Underwriting had created a forum for people to express their views about the business, including the company values that need to be embedded in the business.
As part of this, Carbon Underwriting operates a buddy system, an initiative that staff had put forward and are encouraged to be part of.
“You may not recognise that you’re not operating at your full potential, but your buddy will turn around and say: ‘let’s get a coffee’ if they’ve noticed something isn’t right,” said Card.
He added that some may say this is easy for Carbon Underwriting, as a small business, but size should not have any impact.
“These things can translate to any size of business. It’s an attitude that needs to be promulgated by the executives who run the business. They have to buy into it because it’s for the health of their business as a whole,” he concluded.
Image: Shutterstock / tsyhun
