A prolific contributor to LinkedIn recently posed the question: Is speaking about mental health in the workplace acceptable?
MLB colleague, Rodney Bashford, replied: “It’s essential Peter and thank you for raising it. If we don’t share, listen and understand more about our colleagues’ wellbeing issues – mental health, mental ill-health – we can’t even begin to help them, but neither can we help ourselves. We ALL have mental health – sometimes it’s good health, but increasingly it is not. Talk about it, understand it, help or get help.”
In a recent issue of Cover Magazine, John Brazier reported on research from Mercer Marsh Benefits conducted among 1,300 HR and risk management professionals that found mental health deterioration to be ranked as one of the top risk issues for UK employers.
Shaun Williams, founder and chief executive of Lime, said: “The past 18 months (Covid) has had a huge impact on people’s lives, including their mental health and resilience. The long-term repercussions of the pandemic are likely to be felt for years to come, and it’s important we act now to be aware of and prioritise both our own mental health and that of those around us.”
WHY is such understanding important to Money Life Balance?
WHY should a life-based financial planning business care?
As is so often the case, the answer is, to some extent, in the question. If we don’t take tame to get to know you properly, and to understand the issues that affect your life, then we can’t help Balance those crucial elements of Wellbeing that are needed to get your life and financial resources balanced to support the lifestyle you want and deserve.
To many, ‘Life-Based Planning’ is a new concept. To people like us, who have genuinely cared for the clients whose finance opportunities we have tried to optimise for so, so many years, it is simply giving a new name to what we take for granted.
To give the Financial Services industry its due though, as they are encouraging IFAs to take a more holistic approach to ‘understanding the people behind the portfolio’, we (Greycoat) have renamed and refined our own long-standing ‘top-to-tail’ process and service under the banner of MONEY LIFE BALANCE.
You will find mor on this illustration of the 5 Essential Elements of ‘Wellbeing’, balance and imbalance, is explained and developed under the LIFE button on the menu (above).
All 5 elements must be in balance for your lifestyle to smile.
Our job is not simply to keep the ‘Money’ element on track, because – as the song suggests – Money alone really can’t buy you love, happiness and a balanced wellbeing.
At a glance, if you are having issues at work, your ‘Career’ suffers. Ill ‘Health’ mentally, through stress, concerns, uncertainties put enormous pressure on you, your place in your ‘Human’ interaction with others and your participation in ’Social’ environments.
Whether you are employer, dealing with the fallout with staff still working from home and struggling with their new-found domestic issues and / or feelings of isolation; or you may be that employee, alone and uncertain – please talk, please share, find someone to listen.
Above all, accept and trust us when we say, truly, you are not alone.