Metpro’s Post

Transcript

Before we begin, this episode does contain conversation around suicide and mental health issues, and therefore listener discretion is advised. But do you think we do enough as an industry regarding mental health? No. OK is is the short answer. So you know again I we talk a lot in the charity about. As an industry we're not great at reaching out when we need help and and some people don't really know what's wrong with them. They know that something's not right, but they don't really know what's wrong with them, right and and and that's where. Talking to someone, whether that's the charity or whether that's the peer or whatever that is, that can really help to actually acknowledge that I'm OK to feel like this and actually. There is something that I need some help. Yeah, yeah. I think again, it's men aren't great at doing this. And and. You know, we should be encouraging people to talk and to tell their stories. So, you know, if there are people and there's some people that are very open about their mental health and and what openly share their experience, and then there's others that don't. And it's completely personal choice, right? But as an industry, we need to take it seriously. We need to create those safe spaces for people and educate yourself. So there's a huge push for most of the charity and one thing that. You really kind of advocate for is this prevention to help people before they get to crisis point. Yeah. And the only way we do that is through education and understanding. Yeah. So we do you know lots of different training and and and lots of resources for people to help with that and and ah mission if you like is to. Engage the businesses, the manufacturers, the wholesalers, the contractors, all of those people engage with them to. To make them more aware of of the mental health issues that are going on and what's available. And to educate themselves and, you know, at least to have a program within their business. Yeah, OK. You know, I mean, wouldn't it be great if if our industry committed to the fact that everyone's going to have a well-being programme. Yeah, you know, and. And really drive that through that that would be amazing. Yeah. Because again, what I was saying before we started recording was I think where where people. Are perhaps. Unaccustomed or don't quite understand the the mental health crisis as much as and and I would suggest that it is probably the older generation that that's where that's where the disparity probably is. Mm-hmm. Just because times were you know times were different. But I don't and I think there's this concern that it's gonna if if we start to, if we go down this route as a business and just generally, yeah, the the, the work that that's going to the workload that's going to add on and what we're going to have to commit to it is going to be massive. But an initial one for me would just be just have a there's a direct point of contact or something like that. There's a bit of a process where people know that they can talk to that person. Yeah, exactly. You know and and a lot of business. Have mental health first aid is within their business or well-being champions or things like that, you know. Now I appreciate that not everyone can do that and you know there's different sizes of of businesses within within the industry but even if you. You just start somewhere. Even if you put posters up about the arc in the staff rooms, you know, or anything like that, just just commit to it. And your point around that concern about it's gonna take time, it's going to cost more, you know, I guess it's about looking at the bigger picture, isn't it? And the long term view, Yeah, because. If you're not looking after your employee, well-being that's gonna have a detrimental effect on your business eventually. Yeah. You know, less productivity, morale down, more sick days, all of those kind of things. Yeah. So I guess it's just trying to kind of step back and look at the bigger picture and appreciate that that yes, although you can't see it on the bottom line necessarily. It needs to be part of if you're overall strategy. Yeah, I think we can actually in terms of facts, we've got a little bit on that so that there wasn't an NHS report and I'm hoping I'm correct. I believe it was released this year and in there it stated that there's approximately ��300 billion is England only ��300 billion in losses due to mental health with the split being 130 billion is human cost, 110 is economic and then 60. Health and care, Yeah. And so you're quite right. There's not just a, there's not just a human issue, but there is also an impact on, like, say, on that bottom line that you might not see. But it is there. It's there. And I think there's so many different things available now, you know, kind of. EAP's like employee assistance programs, those kind of things which which a lot of the businesses in our industry have already, but I think that's probably. And of course I'm gonna say this right because I work for the charity, but. It is a huge, huge advantage to the electrical and energy industry to have a charity that's dedicated to them, Absolutely. So there's not many other industries where you have that, you know and. You could almost see us as a free EAP. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, and businesses are paying for that. Umm, and rightly so, but. We can do that for free, yeah. You know, everything that we do is free and confidential. Obviously we rely on fundraising and we can talk a bit more about that, but you know. It's specialized as well, right? It's specialized that we understand the challenges of the industry. Yeah, you know, the, the charity's been around for over 100 years, right? And it's kind of evolved and grown with the industry and we wanna make sure that we evolve and grow with the industry for the next 100 years, you know, but. It's this like wonderful resource that that is available in our industry and and and people need to be aware of it more and use it more you know and and. We can help with all of that, you know, education and training and understanding etcetera. OK. Well, you said that you've been that you were trying to you you speak with manufacturers, wholesalers. I don't know if you speak to contractors as well. We're trying to speak to more contractors. Good. So how is that? What's the impact are you seeing, are you seeing positive uptake? Yeah, our industry is wonderful in that it's very supportive of the charity, it's very generous you know and. Think as I said previously in the past. 12 to 18 months we've definitely seen a shift in in people really caring and and really taking seriously employee well-being. Yeah and of course there are areas where there's lower awareness of us and not as not as much engagement And so one of them is in in contractors and installers. So we're doing a lot of work around that to try and get more into into that area and and our fundamental is. Our first thing is always raise awareness so that people know there is support there for them. So anyone that needs us knows that we're here, right. That is our first thing and then it's about so how do we then start to educate and train and partner with people and businesses to really help with that employee well-being. And then it's about the fundraising and making sure that we can still do that and be around for the next 100 years. OK.