Real voices, real change: building a workplace where mental health matters
A World Mental Health Day reflection from Kristin Wikstrøm, Chief Human Resources Officer at Volue.
A World Mental Health Day reflection from Kristin Wikstrøm, Chief Human Resources Officer at Volue.
I have spent a lot of my working life thinking about how people are, not just how they are performing. The two are often harder to separate than we like to admit. This year, the World Federation for Mental Health has set the theme of ‘Lived experiences heard: Real voices, real change’. For me that lands close to home, because it comes down to whether people feel safe and supported enough to be honest about how they are feeling, and as importantly, whether we listen when they tell us.
For a voice to be heard, we need to look beyond a campaign, company process, or poster in the office kitchen. It is the difference between a workplace where people perform at being fine, and one where they can say when they are not. Change starts with a conversation rather than a policy, and if we get the listening right, the rest tends to follow. We have worked hard on this at Volue and it’s something that we seek to do more of, each and every day.
Life does not wait to throw up challenges, stress, worry, or grief, at a time that is convenient. People go through hard things, and they go through them while they still have jobs to do. I believe we should adapt and adjust so that a person can feel supported at work through whatever crisis life sends them, because these are difficulties that all of us will face at one point in time.
Work is where we spend so much of our lives. Most of our waking hours are spent here, along with a large part of our social life. So it matters that people can come to work on their tougher days, because at some point the days will be tougher. I’ve always said that a workplace that only works when everyone is fine is not really working at all. Because of that, I strive to make Volue a place that works for all.
In a corporate world, silence is often the default setting. Diaries fill up, meetings run back to back, and a whole week can pass without anyone asking a real question. That is why talking has to be deliberate. When a manager says plainly that they have had a hard month, it gives everyone around them permission to be equally human. When mental health is an ordinary item in a one-to-one rather than an emergency conversation, people tend to raise things early, while they are still small and easier to help with. Talking is not a substitute for proper support, but I have found that is usually what makes people willing to accept it.
We invest in social events and in training together, from team activities to the occasional marathon! The reason is not the activity itself, but that meeting a colleague somewhere other than a desk makes it far easier to reach out later. Once you know someone a little, you notice when they look a bit grey in the face, and it feels natural to ask how they are. That small question does a lot of quiet work. It tells a person they are seen, and it comes more easily between people who have shared something other than a deadline.
As an employer, and as a colleague, we have an obligation to care. I think of it as more than an obligation, though. It is a choice we make, again and again, in small moments. Nobody writes it into a job description, and that is the point. The care that matters most is the kind people give because they want to, not because they were told to.
When Stephan, our CEO, joined us, he was curious about all of this. In his coffee-corner chats he kept asking people why they valued Volue so much. The answers were often similar, but one has stayed with me. It came from someone on a temporary contract, someone I knew was hoping to have it extended, so he had every reason to give a polished answer. He did not. He said it was the people, and that people here really care. They ask how you are doing, they want to help you with the work, and they care enough to ask, in the middle of an ordinary day, how you are. That is the culture I want to protect.
In the end, the only thing we really have is our people. If they are not thriving at work, we have nothing to offer, which is why I have never treated this as a soft subject. That is why real voices matter to me, and why real change has to begin with listening to them.
This World Mental Health Day, my ask is small and significant at the same time. Notice the people around you and ask how they are. Then listen as though the answer will change something, because it should, and it will.