1 in 6.8 employees experience mental health problems and managers play an important role in the wellbeing of their employees. If you feel unqualified in engaging in discussions around mental health with your staff, you are not alone. According to recent studies, a vast majority of managers expressed feeling ill-equipped to support their staff with their mental health and hesitate to enter into these conversations. This is mostly due to the stigma attached to poor mental health and lack of know-how of these supportive conversations. In the same study, most staff members have expressed nervousness in discussing their own mental health with their managers for fear of the impact it can have on their job security. This cycle continues, leading to silence in the workplace, poorly supported staff and worsening mental health. Poor working environments impair recruitment and the ability of current employees to thrive at their work, leading to poor health and attendance.

The manager’s role in the conversation

Employees spend many hours of their waking life in the workplace. Their life stresses which originate both from work and in their personal lives will be experienced while they are at work and can affect productivity, work satisfaction and team dynamics. Your role as a manager gives you privileged access into their world and presents valuable opportunities to provide much needed support and often times, effect change in their lives. 

Having counselling skills will empower you in having the type of conversations that enable your staff develop the courage to speak with you about the difficulties they face within work and outside. With the enhanced relationships you build, you will gain a positive working environment, a motivated team and a cohesive and supportive workforce. 

Many managers have not been trained in counselling skills because they assume that as long as colleagues and staff are treated with respect, they will easily open-up about their difficulties. The vast number of employees going on 'work-related stress' leave shows this to be untrue. Speaking with your employees with the skills you are about to learn will help you improve the overall feeling of wellbeing in your organization and reduce the negative outcomes that are linked to poor mental health. 

Gains from this course:

- Increase your confidence in approaching difficult conversations and support your staff and colleagues in promoting positive mental health within your organization. 

- Learn the core counselling skills which will improve your communication, listening skills, and help you better support staff dealing with life difficulties and mental health problems as well as preventing mental health difficulties from escalating.

- Provide you with a new language for engaging with your team members and colleagues.

- Gain an increase in your staff members’ trust in your capabilities with their difficulties and vulnerabilities

- Improve relationships with your team members

- Enable you better support your team members in their work in your organization 

- Equip you with the skills to embark on supportive conversations in the workplace. 

Timely interventions using counselling skills can prevent difficult situations from escalating and become unresolvable. In your role as a manager, using these skills will help you listen, to offer intuitive help, to suggest, to question curiously and to present helpful options. Having counselling skills help you anticipate problems or difficulties and reduce the need for firefighting.

This course is not just essential for you if you are a new manager, but is integral in your continual improvement to better support your staff.

Limitations of this course:

- This course is designed for managers in the workplace and not designed for use by mental health professionals or counsellors. The goals of mental health professionals are different from those of managers so while a counsellor will not give advice or direction, a manager may.

- This course is not designed for diagnosing or treating mental health problems. Counsellors, psychotherapists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have a different type of training designed to treat or support clients or patients to treat mental disorders and illnesses. Please refer your employee to appropriate mental health professionals where needed. 

- This course is not a complete management course but an add-on to other management training. During the period of your employment as a manager, you will have undertaken various management training courses to sharpen your management skills. This course is an additional course to raise your awareness and equip you with skills that will broaden your skillset. 

- This course is part of a series of courses on counselling and people management from the mental health field. This course is not primarily about counselling theory and practice.

- As managers are different, staff are different and so no outcomes are guaranteed with this course. 

General points to note about the course

- The quizzes are included to test your knowledge and consolidate your learning as you proceed through the course. You are advised to complete the quizzes fully. However, the results are not published and will not determine whether you have completed your course or not. 

- The terms staff, colleague, direct-report, team member and co-worker are used throughout this course interchangeably to refer to your staff, members of your team and direct reports.