Managing Emotional Wellbeing – building team resilience

Welcome

The Managing Emotional Wellbeing materials aim to help managers build team resilience by:

improving the way you manage your team
enhancing your own and your team members’ emotional wellbeing
building a culture of engagement

Why is team emotional wellbeing important?
Who should use these materials and how?
What is my role in my team’s wellbeing?
What if I don’t work in the same location as my team?

Endorsements

Dame Carol Black, National Director for Health and Work

Line managers play a key role in supporting workers and ensuring they are equipped to do their job. That not only applies to the day-to-day physical demands of a post, but to the emotional demands too.

BITC's new online tool will help managers develop both their own and their team’s emotional wellbeing. The tool helps managers assess and develop their skills and then adapt and apply them to the needs of their team.

By improving the emotional resilience of their team, managers are helping to create a more positive working environment for employees which in turn helps increase productivity and reduce staff turnover for the business.

Ben Wilmot, Senior Policy Adviser, CIPD

For the CIPD, good people management lies at the heart of supporting health and wellbeing at work and underpins sustainable organisation performance. This tool can be used by HR practitioners to help equip their line managers with the key people management skills to support individual resilience and boost employee engagement. It also provides useful tips on the warning signs which might suggest someone is suffering from stress or another mental health problem, as well as some practical advice for managers on how to respond in an appropriate way and on possible solutions.

Neil Carberry, CBI Head of Employment Policy, CBI

Businesses understand that an integrated approach to health and wellbeing in the workplace has benefits for both employees and firms. We hope this toolkit will prove useful to employers in improving their health and wellbeing strategies

Bob Grove, Chief Executive, Centre for Mental Health

This tool will be a useful tool for managers in managing emotional wellbeing in their teams. The content in my opinion is accurate and has been well research and professional produced.

Cary Cooper, Pro Vice Chancellor, Lancaster University

This is a very worthwhile tool that will help and support managers and individuals in their coping strategies to deal with workplace stress.

Health and Safety Executive

The HSE is happy to endorse this new product which adds another tool that managers can use to improve their behaviour and that of their staff. Management behaviour is crucial in keeping teams motivated and productive. However, all too often management behaviour is identified as a stressor by employees. Good managers will identify where stress is an issue and take action to stop it effecting health and performance in their team. This tool can help them improve wellbeing and enhance performance.

Paul Farmer, CEO, Mind

Mind believes that friendly, open and supportive work environments benefit everyone. This toolkit will help employers to take the necessary steps to protect the mental health of their workforce, leading to increased productivity, improved staff performance and thousands of pounds being saved.

Why is team emotional wellbeing important?

The BITC Workwell Model shows the business benefits of proactively improving wellbeing and building resilience.

Hover your cursor over the benefits shown in the outer circle to learn more.

Higher productivity – poor emotional wellbeing also creates ‘presenteeism’. Presenteeism is when an employee attends work but is not as productive as they could be because they are not well or engaged. This is estimated to cost 1.5 times the cost of sickness absence (Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, 2007)

Better brand image – companies in the FTSE 100 who show best practice reporting on employee health and wellbeing show a higher total shareholder return than average – 61% instead of 51% (BITC/Ipsos MORI, 2010)

Better retention and recruitment - the average recruitment cost of filling an employee vacancy is £6,125, including costs such as recruitment and selection, temporary cover, redundancy payments, training and induction (CIPD 2009)

Better attendance – the average cost of sickness absence is £692 per employee per year, rising to £784 in the public sector, £754 in the manufacturing and production sector and £741 in the non-profit sector (CIPD, 2009)

Better engagement – a Government report concluded that “if employee engagement and the principles that lie behind it were more widely understood, if good practice was more widely shared… we could see a step change in workplace performance and in employee well-being” (McLeod and Clarke, 2009)

"Employers need to take urgent action to promote the mental and physical health of their employees if they are to ensure the competitiveness of their companies in difficult, as well as prosperous, economic times. Alex Gourlay, Chief Executive of the Health and Beauty Division, Alliance Boots and Chairman of the Business in the Community Business Action for Working Well Campaign

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Who should use these online materials and how?

Who are these materials for?
They are for all line managers: whether you manage a small team or a large department, and work in a small, medium or large organisation. They provide information relevant to managing a dispersed or remote team as well as managing a team who work in the same location as you.

What do they include?
There are six modules, each one covering a different topic relevant to managing your team’s emotional wellbeing. Each module is made up of exercises, quizzes, scenarios and information. There is also a resources page to help you explore the subject in more detail.

How do I use them?
They are designed for you to use in the way that best suits you. You can choose how to use them according to the time you have available, how you prefer to learn and what is the most important topic for you.

How long will it take?
We have included an estimated time for completion within each of the modules. In total, the materials should take about 90 minutes to complete. You can work through all six modules in one sitting, but it might be better to work through one or a few modules at a time to avoid information overload!

Who produced them?
They have been produced by Affinity Health at Work (concepts, content and materials) and Blended Solutions (web design) for Business in the Community. The project has been funded by ARAMARK and Places for People – click on the logos below to learn more about these organisations.

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What if I don’t work in the same location as my team?

If you manage your team remotely, these materials are very relevant to you – probably even more so than if you were in the same location. You may need to make extra effort to maintain contact with the team and build their wellbeing.

Specifically, you might want to consider:

What you can do to make sure your team members’ jobs include the elements of ‘good work’ (See module 1)
How you ensure that your management approach builds wellbeing in your team (See module 3)
How you monitor how your team is feeling and the pressures they have to manage (Module 4)
If a member of your team is struggling, what you need to do to support them (Module 5)
When a member of your team goes off sick, how you stay in touch with them and welcome them back to work (Module 6)

Throughout these materials you will find reference to what to do if you can’t meet your staff face-to-face. Information that is particularly relevant for you is highlighted with the following icon:
Remote working icon

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What is my role in my team’s wellbeing?

As a manager, you have a vital role to play in supporting the health and wellbeing of your team. You can find out more about the ways a manager can affect team wellbeing below:

Direct impact – your behaviour has a direct influence on how your team members feel, for example whether they feel valued or taken for granted, whether they are clear about what is expected of them or confused about what they are supposed to do… You can prevent (or cause) stress by the way that you behave towards your team.
Gatekeeper role – you are often the interface between the employer organisation and individual employees. You can influence whether your team members are protected from, or exposed to, difficult working conditions. For instance it would be your role to negotiate an extension to a deadline on a new piece of work when your team is working to full capacity.
Being alert – as a manager who knows your team, you are in the best place to spot at an early stage if one of your team members is struggling or is showing warning signs of being at risk of stress-related or common mental health problems.
Taking action - if one of your team members suffers from a health problem or becomes disengaged, you are likely to be involved in the solution. At the very least, you will be involved in managing the person’s absence or other health impacts on their work.

"Good line management can lead to good health, well-being and improved performance. Line managers also have a role in identifying and supporting people with health conditions to help them to carry on with their responsibilities, or adjust responsibilities where necessary." Dame Carol Black, National Director for Health and Work

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