Suicide…it takes courage to ask for help
Today Beyond IQ helped save a 15 yr old boys life. Together with his school principal we created an environment in which he felt safe enough to break his silence. To hear him say the words, “I want to die” and to see him have the courage to speak these words to his mum, was truly a moving experience. There were tears all round as the impact of his words landed on our hearts.
Why is mental health such an important issue in the workplace today?
Firstly, psychological problems are estimated to affect 45% of people at some stage in their life, and as many as 20% of the population in any given year. And secondly, don’t most of us spend around half of our waking hours at work? Mental illness doesn’t discriminate on the basis of employment status; we bring our mental health problems to work just as we bring our physical health problems to work. More importantly for this discussion, the number of people experiencing mental disorders as a result of their work environment is on the rise.
Don’t reward staff…it doesn’t work and science proves it
We believe that if we pay our staff more money they will perform better. A respected HR blog last week suggested that this is what is needed to get things going again. (I couldn’t believe what I was reading). So we design performance reward systems to entice staff to work harder. For some staff this works. For the overwhelming majority it doesn’t. And there is at least 40years of hard scientific evidence to prove this is not the way to get things going!
company.