Legal & General has launched its Not A Red Card Awards to celebrate what businesses have developed and implemented regarding best practices around addressing mental health in the workplace.

Following on from last year’s campaign, the insurer is encouraging employers to both promote and continue to take action to protect the mental wellbeing of their employees by establishing resources and services to help support these initiatives.

The awards are the first time that the Not A Red Card campaign celebrates with employers and their employees in this capacity and will be open to businesses of all sizes, who have demonstrated how they have helped tackle the issue of mental health in the workplace.

The awards will also look to recognise those businesses which exhibit tangible elements that could be shared with other organisations looking to address mental wellbeing in the workplace.

The award categories, which will award organisations and individuals alike for their efforts, will include:

• The Collaboration Award for a company demonstrating cross-sector or cross industry engagement with an initiative that brought together different stakeholders to address mental health in the workplace.
• Innovative Use of Sport Award for a company that has used sport in a unique way to raise awareness, educate or address mental health issues in the workplace.
• Best Mental Health Initiative (including an SME category and larger companies category) for a company with less than 500 employees/ more than 500 employees implementing a programme that enabled employees and employers to discuss, learn and take action towards addressing mental health in the workplace.
• The Inspiration Award for an individual that has made or spearheaded an act, effort or statement to inspire people to be more active in discussing mental health issues in the workplace.
• The Leadership Award for a new or unique initiative as decided by the judges.

The inaugural awards will take place at the second Not A Red Card Forum on 30 October 2018.

Research from last year’s mental health forum found that 48% of attendees didn’t feel their employees would confide in a colleague if they were struggling with their own mental well-being. However, 85% said that they had seen improvements over the past five years with regards to discussing mental health in the workplace.

The forum also identified five key issues believed to be barriers to open, honest discussions around mental wellbeing at work, including a lack of education and understanding around mental health problems and poor availability of resources to help address mental health. Further information about the findings can be found in the Red Report here: http://report.legalandgeneral.com/cgi-bin/msite?narcpaper+a+0+0+0+0+0&cid=PR11055

Nigel Wilson, CEO, Legal & General, said: “Whilst it’s encouraging to see mental health in the workplace becoming a more widely discussed topic, we need to ensure that employers are taking action to provide employees with access to the support they need, when they need it most.

“The importance of encouraging open, honest discussion around mental health issues cannot be understated, which is why we are calling for employers to take action in addressing mental wellbeing in their own workplaces.

“We are excited to be able to further develop our successful Not a Red Card campaign to tackle the stigma often unfairly associated with to mental health in the workplace, by transforming ideas into action to ensure that businesses are looking for improvements within their own strategies.

“Our awards provide a unique chance to recognise the organisations and individuals that are helping to lead the discussion and eliminate stigma often associated with mental wellbeing in the workplace.”