In this blog we will look at 5 ways to support lone worker’s mental health that you can easily implement in your company, no matter what size or sector you are in.

Working alone can take a toll on even the most resilient lone worker. Looking after your lone workers should include their mental wellbeing, as well as their physical wellbeing.

Number 5-Keep them Safe-is absolutely vital. Read on to find out more.

1) Be Available To Support Your Lone Worker

One of the most useful things you can do to support your lone worker’s mental health is to be available when they need you.

This doesn’t mean you need to be on the end of the phone, day and night, talking about their personal life.

Often, just a quick call during the day can support your lone worker’s mental health.

It can be lonely working without supervision or support of a manager, especially in a high risk or stressful environment.

If your lone worker is dealing with daily aggression or potential threat every day, feeling like they have been left to it can increase feelings of resentment or reduce mental resilience.

Make sure you check in with your lone worker at least every day. If they call you, answer your phone. If they don’t have a lone worker device the call could be urgent. If you can’t answer straight away, make sure you call them back.

2) Have Supportive Policies

Make sure your lone worker policy is supportive of your lone workers by getting their input into the sorts of challenges they face and responding to those needs and risks.

Building in processes and opportunities for reporting incidents and receiving support afterwards is a great first step to supporting your lone worker’s mental health.

Often, lone worker’s mental health is affected by low level, persistent incidents or responsibilities, especially in public facing roles.

Ensuring your lone workers can report the incidents, no matter how seemingly trivial is important, not only in supporting their mental health, but also in building up a picture of activity and aggression in certain roles or locations.

3) Build in Office Time

Isolation can be very detrimental to your lone worker’s mental health if they regularly work off site.

It can be easy to fall into the ‘out of site, out of mind’ trap and forget to invite your lone worker to pizza Fridays or assume they won’t be able to make it to the weekly team meeting over doughnuts, but this can make your colleague feel lonely and excluded.

If you have regular meetings, it is your responsibility to ensure all your team can attend, even if that means going to them or organising cover.

If they really can’t attend social events, or don’t want to, make sure you invite them anyway. Sometimes, it is just nice to be asked.

Building in office time will support your lone worker’s mental health by making them feel included, building a team morale, and providing them with a ready support network.

4) Offer Additional Services

Many companies now offer additional health and wellbeing services as an employee perk, or even as part of the overall health and wellbeing policy.

Free counselling, a lone worker device, gym membership, or even an employee wellbeing programme will all help keep your employees healthy, safe and happy. Exercise is an incredibly effective way of boosting mental health. 

Offering practical ways to support your lone worker’s mental and physical health will mean they can access help when they need it.

This will result in fewer absence days, a lower turnover of staff, and increased productivity, as this article on safeguarding your employee’s mental health from wellness experts, Wellspace, points out.

5) And Most Importantly….Keep Them Safe

No one wants to feel scared or vulnerable at work. In fact, it is our right to feel safe when we are working.

Keeping your lone workers safe requires some simple steps which don’t seem like much on their own, but all together make a huge difference.

A great lone worker risk assessment is thorough, realistic, and tailored to each role, location, and scenario.

A lone worker device can literally save lives by giving your staff the tools and support to quickly and effectively rouse support if they need it and are in a dangerous or threatening situation.

Buddying systems and check in/check out phone calls are great, but they don’t provide the 24/7/365 service of a proper alarm receiving centre and are placing responsibility on your other colleagues or yourself.

It is worth investigating if a lone worker solution is appropriate for your business.

Give Us A Call

First2HelpYou have bags of experience in the industry, and have tailor made our service and device to fill a gap in the market.

The KIT Device is a great size and really easy to use, and the service is fully tailorable. If you want to receive a box of devices and assign them yourself, that is fine. If you want us to do all the work, that is also fine. It is up to you.

Give us a call on 0333 7729401 or send us an email on sales@first2helpyou.co.uk . We would be happy to talk through some options or send you a brochure.