Bank of New York Mellon : #BlueMonday, mental health and the power of conversations

Written by: Matt Wells | Manchester Site Executive, BNY Mellon

To some, Blue Monday is simply a 1980s synth-pop track by the much-loved Manchester rock band New Order - but to others it means something else entirely.

All over social media today we are seeing people use the hashtag #bluemonday to mark what some psychologists and neuroscientists consider the most depressing day of the year. There are some which see this social campaign as a good thing. And there are those which see this as trivialising depression. I'm somewhere in the middle.

For those who suffer from emotional wellbeing challenges, every day is Blue Monday. That being said, I think the concept of #bluemonday presents a great opportunity to encourage positive conversations, in the hope that we can remove the stigma of mental health in society once and for all.

For all of us our mental health is just as important as our physical health. Talking, whether it be through social media, or with our family, friends and colleagues, helps us all recognise this and can dispel misconceptions about mental health and the people who suffer.

As research from the Heads Together Campaign, a mental health charity led by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, shows - even though four in ten people find it difficult to start a conversation about their own mental health, once they have had the conversation, eight out of ten people said they found it helpful.

Conversations can be powerful and businesses can contribute to destigmatising the issue by changing the conversation around mental health in the workplace too.

At BNY Mellon, emotional wellbeing is one of the four main pillars of our wellbeing strategy. Here in Manchester, we've invested heavily to build a supportive environment that promotes wellbeing in all senses, and this has paid dividends for our people, and for our business.

For example HEART, one of our employee resource groups, is dedicated to health and disabilities in their broadest possible terms and has played a crucial role in implementing an inclusive culture that promotes emotional wellbeing and encourages our people to bring their whole self to work.

Our dedicated Wellbeing Weeks play a crucial role, too. The workshops, speaker events and fund-raising activity organised during these periods provide a platform for meaningful employee engagement that goes much further than simple awareness-raising. And this year we will soon be introducing mental health training for all our managers worldwide.

It has been incredibly pleasing to see the pace of change accelerate here in the UK over the last 12 months. The Thriving at Work review published by the UK Government in October 2017 quantified the annual cost of mental health to business with an estimate of £42 billion.

This figure alone should be enough to make employers sit up and pay attention so that we see momentum continue in 2018, but when you factor in the link between wellbeing and high performance - in every aspect of life and work - emotional wellbeing should really come into view as a high priority area.

My message to our people this year is to continue to invest in your emotional resilience and demonstrate support for the mental wellbeing of your colleagues.

Let's resolve to tackle the stigma of mental ill-health in the workplace. Let's keep talking to one another, and feel empowered to access support when we need it.

To learn more about BNY Mellon's commitment to wellbeing in the workplace, please click here.