Reflecting on the recent Mental Health Awareness Month, Amiqus’ Liz Prince spoke to Sky Tunley-Stainton, partnerships and training officer at Safe in Our World, about what studios can do to support their staff.
Why should studio heads and HR teams put an employee wellbeing programme in place?
Evidence strongly suggests that supporting mental health and wellbeing at work leads to higher performance, productivity, and employee satisfaction. CIPD’s 2022 Health and Wellbeing At Work Report suggests that a third of employers have increased their employee wellbeing budget since 2020, and just over half have taken a strategic approach to wellbeing at work. To remain an employer of choice, retain existing staff, and foster a happier, more productive working environment, it’s imperative that studios begin prioritising wellbeing.
Where do they start?
The first thing I’d recommend studios do in their approach to wellbeing is to identify their team’s needs. Wellbeing initiatives must be approached with flexibility in mind, as individuals’ mental health needs can vary significantly. The best way to understand how to support your team is to ask them: whether in a team meeting, employee survey, or other method.
Once you have identified their needs, you can begin to work with your team to implement support systems. There will never be a ‘quick fix’, but there may be things that require more urgent implementation, such as stress management techniques, generalist mental health training, an employee assistance programme, and so on.
It’s unlikely that your company’s culture around mental health will shift overnight. It may take some time for employees to adopt the processes and resources you put in place for them. The important thing is to not stop just because the uptake is slow: it takes time for people to feel safe talking about issues such as mental health. Therefore, my third piece of advice is to keep talking about wellbeing. Integrate these conversations into all areas of the business, from daily meetings to long-term strategic planning. The more you talk about it, the more comfortable your team will feel in asking for help.
How can Safe In Our World help?
We offer a wealth of resources on a variety of mental health topics via our website, safeinourworld.org, as well as sharing stories of real people’s experiences with mental ill health, which can serve as an important conversation starter. We also have an industry initiative called the #LevelUpMentalHealth programme. Level Up was started in 2020 and now has almost 150 global partners.
The aim of the programme is to connect games industry companies with free resources and training to allow them to implement mental health support in work. We believe it is vital for all companies of all sizes to have access to these resources to do what’s needed to promote wellbeing at work and, as such, we are always seeking to evolve the programme and offer even more support.
What should we all, as individuals, do to protect our own mental wellbeing? What are the signs of burnout, etc to look out for?
Wellbeing will look very different from person to person, so my best advice is to spend some time becoming attuned to your personal warning signs. Common signs of burnout or stress can include tiredness, anxiety, loss of concentration, increase or decrease in appetite, and much more. What does ‘normal’ feel like to you? When do you differ from this feeling? It can help to keep track of these feelings and try to identify the triggers in your daily life. Then, build self-care routines into your day and week to manage these feelings.
If you find it difficult to make this time, try putting it in your calendar to ensure it doesn’t get replaced with other meetings or projects. Above all, try to advocate for yourself and others: situations that impact mental health and wellbeing will only continue if they are left unchallenged.
