Video

Exploring wellbeing: Why addressing mental health at SMEs is vital

29th April 2021

Event date: 29th April 2021

Addressing our mental health is more vital now than it ever has been before, and this is due to the vast majority of the UK population having to adjust to new working environments and facing stress, isolation and the pressure of remote working and juggling family life. I am sure most of us have heard about ways we can look after our own wellbeing, but what does that really mean in practice for SME business owners and leaders?

The majority of the UK working population (three fifths of the private sector) is employed by SMEs, and in 2019 the UK had 5.82 million small businesses. Particularly within a small company, any one individual plays an integral role and has a large impact on the business as a whole. Better workplace mental health and wellbeing leads to increased productivity, retention, employee happiness and overall job satisfaction— and working on the issue does not need to break the bank.

In this virtual event we were joined by Jen Clay of Oakleaf Enterprise and Sally Pritchett of Something Big for an hour of thought-provoking discussion on how you can address mental health and wellbeing within your business.

Jen Clay is the Fundraising and Partnership Manager at Oakleaf Enterprise, a Mental Health charity located in Guildford. Oakleaf offer a range of services to their clients to empower them to gain the skills, training and confidence needed to manage their mental health and return to work. They provide work related training, wellbeing activities and courses, counselling services and many more. So, we are very happy to be joined by Jen today.

We are also delighted to be joined by Sally Pritchett, CEO of Something Big, a creative communications agency located in Woking. Something Big believe business problems can be solved by better communications that are creatively delivered to make audiences act, and they understand commercial challenges and know how to use creative to move the dial on business performance, whether you’re engaging employees or talking to customers.