With poor mental health at work a widespread issue, Justin Leigh demonstrates the importance of mental health and wellbeing for practice teams.
Mental health and wellbeing have been at the top of most business agendas over the past few years. It’s now widely recognised that fostering employee wellbeing is good for both employees and organisations. Promoting wellbeing can help prevent stress and create positive working environments where individuals and organisations can thrive.
A major study into workplace wellbeing by the mental health charity Mind revealed that poor mental health at work is widespread. Around 48% of all people surveyed said they have experienced a mental health problem in their current job (Mind, 2018).
The survey of more than 44,000 employees also revealed that only half of those who had experienced poor mental health had talked to their employer about it. This suggests that as many as one in four UK workers are struggling in silence.
Research by the British Dental Association (BDA) shows that dentistry is associated with high levels of stress and burnout (British Dental Journal, 2019). It also found that dentists with five to 10 years of clinical experience had severe levels of anxiety and 68% were moderately depressed.
Attention for prevention
Because of the busyness of dental practices, mental health and wellbeing are often overlooked as priorities. Dentists and their teams are more focused on their patients and running a high quality, efficient practice.
Attention to team health and wellbeing tends to be given as a reaction, when the situation is severe enough that it clearly needs to be focused on. This is very similar to the shift that needs to happen with patients towards preventative dentistry. When patients have been neglecting their oral health for a long time, they will need extensive treatment to return to good oral health.
The same is true for mental health. If we don’t take the time to build in regular activities that support positive wellbeing, we can find ourselves and our teams feeling drained, demotivated and in the worst cases, burnt out.
Putting mental health and wellbeing on the agenda is straightforward. Once it’s an area of focus, the impact can be incredibly positive for the entire practice team.
Making health a priority
It’s the simple regular activities that make the most positive impact. A great starting place is to make health and wellbeing a priority for the practice team. Including mental health as a regular agenda item at practice meetings can help the team to become more aware and provide support for each other.
Scheduling regular time for the team to be together, outside of the pressure of working in surgery or with patients, can build in recovery time. Having regular one to one conversations with each member of the team to ask how they’re feeling and give them space to talk is really impactful.
Practice ethos
People in leadership roles help set the tone in terms of attitude and employee engagement. Ensuring that senior practice members understand the importance of mental health and wellbeing helps to normalise it. When managers demonstrate their commitment to positive mental health and are advocates for it, teams feel more empowered to talk about the subject and seek help when they need it.
A force for good
Having a bigger purpose for your practice team can help you all connect with something more meaningful beyond the day-to-day work of the practice. It helps you and your team feel more fulfilled and gives you something to feel proud of.
I highly recommend getting involved in your local community and connecting your work in dentistry with a cause you feel passionate about to support your patient population. It’s a great way to give back to your local area and enhance your reputation.
Once you’ve decided on your cause, you can start to plan for how you’ll support it as a practice team. Making it a regular practice meeting agenda item, reviewing your activities and coming up with new ideas as a team keeps it fresh and current.
At Focus4growth, we like the term ‘force for good’. It reminds us of the impact we make by having a strong sense of purpose. We’re advocates for the United Nations Global Goals and are proud supporters of the 1% pledge.
As part of our pledge, we founded a volunteer support group called Walk & Talk 4 Men. It’s a men’s mental health and wellbeing support group led by myself and Steve Whitney. The group meets twice a month to walk and talk, and provide support for men in the Cambridgeshire community. So far, we have helped over 170 men to meet each other, walk in nature and talk about whatever is on their mind.
Positive environment
Meaningful progress has certainly been made in recent years in terms of our openness as a society to discussing mental health. But there’s still a long way to go.
We need to ensure our practices have the resources and support to help their teams thrive. Senior members of staff need to listen to their employees and act on their feedback. Ultimately, this will help to create a positive working environment for all.
If you’d like to learn more about Focus4growth’s work, join the inspiring email group at bit.ly/Weekly-inspiring-emails.
You can connect with Justin at linktr.ee/JustinLeigh.
You can learn more about Walk & Talk 4 Men here.
For references, email [email protected].
