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Mentally Healthy Workplaces

McKernon, S., Allen, R. & Money, E. , 'Mentally healthy workplaces - a living toolkit.' In Morrow, L., Verins, I., & Willis, E. (Eds.). (2002). Mental health and work: Issues and perspectives. Adelaide: Auseinet: The Australian Network for Promotion, Prevention and Early Intervention for Mental Health.

In this report from New Zealand, McKernon, Allen and Money (2002) list their findings from a brainstorming group and interviews with human resource managers, line managers and employees from more than 30 workplaces.

Characteristics of mentally healthy workplaces are said to include:

  • productivity and peak performance in individuals, teams and organisations
  • an accounting for people's feelings
  • effective communication
  • satisfying workplace relationships
  • a quick and effective approach to dealing with difficulties.

Being 'mentally healthy' was closely aligned with competence:

  • in work tasks - being good at the specific tasks of the job
  • in communicating and relating - being able to express one's feelings, understand those of others and maintain good relationships
  • in setting boundaries - being able to set personal boundaries ('not getting personal')
  • in balancing - being able to set a balance between work and home life
  • in taking on informal mentoring, mediating and counselling roles
  • in taking responsibility and initiative on behalf of the company
  • in getting the company to provide a good working environment (to minimise environmental stresses)
  • in getting the company to provide good technology to do the job (to minimise task-related stresses).

A 'mentally healthy' team and workplace culture featured:

  • trust
  • friendship and camaraderie
  • practical support with problems in the workplace and at home
  • shared values and goals
  • shared understanding (including noticing signs and symptoms of unhappiness)
  • equality (between people)
  • effective teamwork and leadership (between roles)
  • rapid resolution of difficulties and conflicts within the organisation
  • the meeting of team and organisational productivity targets.