A leadership expert has warned companies looking to embark on a timetable of wellbeing initiatives for mental health awareness week that they can’t “spa trip their way out of a bad culture.”

Drew Povey, author and founder of the Drew Povey Consultancy, says organisations need to instead focus on embedding wellbeing into their culture, rather than relying on a programme of activities for one week of the year.

Drew, who has worked with leading sports clubs and blue chip companies, said: “The idea of being caring and considerate in the workplace isn’t a policy, it’s the very environment you create.

“Mental Health Awareness Week will often bring good intentions. There’ll be workshops, wellbeing emails, free coffee mornings, they might even get that spa voucher.

“But too often, businesses treat well-being like an event rather than an environment.

“One-off things might be a nice add on to reinforce an already existing culture but it’s not more important than getting the environment right.

“Because the reality is there’s literally no wellbeing initiative in the world that will compensate for a culture that exhausts people the other 51 weeks of the year.

“So if you’re just doing a wellbeing week, you’ve got quite a big problem.

“The organisations that make the biggest difference to well-being are rarely the loudest about it. It’s not about the week, it’s not about the month, it’s about constantly doing it because they are the ones who create cultures where the people feel heard, where the individuals in the company are absolutely understood, and where support is continuous rather than occasional.

“Because at the end of the day, well-being is not about policies. It’s not about perks. It’s also not about the Awareness Week. It’s about whether people genuinely feel that somebody cares.”

Here are Drew’s four tips to making mental health awareness a year-round activity.

Leave spa vouchers for the raffle

You can’t spa trip your way out of bad leadership and bad culture in the workplace. Real support is rarely found in gestures; it’s found in understanding. So if you are thinking about ticking the ‘wellbeing’ box by taking part in some activities for mental health awareness week, you’re missing the point

Just because mental health or workplace wellness is talked about for this week doesn’t mean that your team actually feels supported.

One of the problems I see is when organisations promote mental health externally, while internally they are creating constant pressure, uncertainty and constant emotional overload.

People don’t just need the initiatives that they might see within a company, they need environments where they feel psychologically safe, valued and listened to. It’s not just some bolt-on with activities created by a committee, it’s the fundamental environment.

One size doesn’t fit all

What helps one person might frustrate another person. A policy you might think will help could quickly become restrictive for someone else. When we adopt a ‘one size fits all’ approach we ignore how differently people live and work.

Supporting people starts with understanding your people. I found this out personally when I implemented a policy of ‘no emails between 7pm and 7am’ thinking it would give people a break from work.

I had a queue of people at the door knocking it down, saying, please don’t do it. I thought I was doing them a favour, but a lot of parents were going home at the end of the day, dealing with their kids and then they wanted to sit and work at 7 o’ clock. My attempt at wellbeing would have created a problem for some of my team by assuming that one size fits all – so I scrapped it.

Empowerment matters more than protection

A great leader or a successful company doesn’t need to permanently manage wellbeing for other people just as they don’t micromanage their work. What they do is help people to understand themselves better and recognise what they need to be able to perform sustainably.

We often talk about empowering people to make their own decisions about work but the same is true of supporting wellbeing and mental health.

Businesses have to create the environment, but people’s well-being will be down to them. They know what is going to work best for them, and if they don’t, let’s help them get there.

The goal shouldn’t be dependency but awareness, ownership, and the creation of strategies that work for that individual.

Swap the golden rule for the platinum rule

We all know the golden rule: treat other people how you would like to be treated. It’s probably something our mothers have all told us at various points during our childhood.

But with real leadership, this goes further and becomes the platinum rule: treat other people as they would treat themselves.

This is about listening properly and really understanding people. Because when we assume something, we can do real harm. Just as I thought that everyone would enjoy no emails after 7pm, I would have been giving some staff extra stress. The platinum rule meant that I listened to them.