Resources for Line Managers
This resource page is designed to help you foster a supportive, healthy workplace with practical tools and strategies for managing common challenges. Whether it’s tips on reducing workplace stress, guidance on mental health conversations, or resources for promoting work-life balance, these resources will empower you to create a positive impact on your team’s health and happiness.
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Health and Wellbeing Conversations
What is a health and wellbeing conversation?
Health and wellbeing conversations are supportive one-to-one conversations that focus on employee’s whole wellbeing (e.g. physical, mental, emotional, social, financial, and safety) and signposting to support where needed.
Your wellbeing can be affected by all kinds of factors, workload, capacity, relationships with colleagues, physical working environment, or factors outside work, including lack of sleep, financial worries, health conditions, caring responsibilities and other personal circumstances through regular wellbeing conversations with a line manager or a Peer based approach held as standalone conversations or incorporated into existing 1:1s creating a Just Culture that encourages us all to pass care and compassion on to each other, our patients, and to our families.
Good practice for wellbeing conversations:
Wellbeing conversations are:
- Caring and compassionate – they give space to enable employees to holistically explore their wellbeing.
- Employee-led – they enable the employee to lead the conversation and focus on the most important things to them.
- Supportive – they signpost employees to the most appropriate support.
- On-going and dynamic – wellbeing changes over time, therefore these conversations should be held regularly.
- Inclusive – every employee should have ongoing supportive conversations that enable their unique and diverse personal wellbeing needs to be met.
Wellbeing conversations are not:
- Therapeutic interventions – employees should, where necessary, be signposted to access appropriate support from trained professionals.
- Judgemental or performance related – wellbeing conversations should not be used for performance management or as a way of judging the quality of someone’s work.
- A formal mental health assessment – if you think your colleague needs a formal mental health assessment, you can signpost them to a relevant trained professional.
Use the links for more information on how staff can approach Wellbeing Conversations, Line Manager Expectations regarding employee support, and e-learning modules to support managers in having safe and effective wellbeing conversations.
Supporting the wellbeing of staff who are neurodiverse
What is neurodiversity?
‘Neurodiversity’ refers to the natural diversity in human brains. Neurodivergence is the term for when someone’s brain processes, learns, and/or behaves differently from what is considered “typical”. Some neurodivergent conditions include:
- Dyslexia
- Dyspraxia (also called Developmental Coordination Disorder, or DCD)
- Dyscalculia
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
- Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC).
- Dyscalculia (difficulty with numbers)
- Dysgraphia (a condition that affects the ability to recognise and decipher written words, the relationship between letter forms and the sounds they make)
- Tourette’s syndrome
Around 1 in 7 people nearly 15%-20% of people in the UK may have one or more than one type of neurodiversity all associated with specific strengths and challenges and have different needs.
Why is support in the workplace important?
Why is support in the workplace important?
Supporting neurodiverse or neurotypical or having a diverse team isn’t just important for diversity and inclusion. It allows organisations and teams to benefit from competitive and different views and skills to approach tasks and unlock solutions to issues, which increases productivity and retention.
It is important to structure workplaces in a way that works best for all employees and consider reasonable adjustments to harness employees’ skills and talent and enable them to fulfill their potential.
For more ideas on how to support your neurodiverse colleagues look here: Neurodiversity in the workplace | Texthelp
Harnessing Neurodiverse Talent In The Workplace: https://omny.fm/shows/the-hr-uprising/241-thru/embed by an Expert by Experience.
Reasonable adjustments can include:
- Taking shoes off at the desk area when seated
- Wearing glare-reducing/prescription sunglasses
- Improving signage to reduce anxiety
- Upgrading software on laptops and desktops
- Providing reading pens or tablets that help dictate
- Changing seating positions
- Altering desk layouts
- Coloured reading slides or glasses
- Voice-to-text readers
- Non-scratchy chairs
- Allowing for flexible breaks
- Designated quiet room to work in (no food smells, ticking clocks, etc)
- Providing a thinking/reflection room to decompress/regulate in, (with sofas, soft seating, books, colouring, fish tanks, etc)
- Work from home (from your safe place)
- Noise-cancelling headphones, permission to wear sunglasses or caps in bright rooms where the lights can’t be changed,
- Voice recording pens
- Whiteboard
- Clear plastic folders (object impermanence)
Menopause support – tips for line managers
Offer regular wellbeing conversations to check in with colleagues and explore if making any reasonable adjustments to their working pattern would support them.
Recommend that colleagues join local or national menopause support groups and peer networks to meet others who are experiencing similar challenges.
You can also find tips for managers and leaders on how to support colleagues affected by the menopause in the ‘Supporting colleagues in late career’ chapter of our retention guide for line managers and employers.
NHS England have a new e-learning for health module about the menopause. Developed specifically for NHS staff, it covers the common symptoms of the menopause, how it can impact people at work and how we can support colleagues going through the transition.
You can find further information and resources on our dedicated menopause page.
WorkWell for Employers
WorkWell is a pilot that aims to help disabled people and people with health conditions to start, return to and stay in work.
This service is free, voluntary, and it offers your employees an opportunity to talk confidentially about their work and health needs from an early stage. It aims to prevent them falling out of work due to a disability or health condition. It also supports employees in managing a condition when they return to work from a sickness absence.
See below document to support you in having conversations about the WorkWell pilot with your employees.
WorkWell For EmployersAlso available for download here.
Other resources…
Whilst we continue to update this page, please see below for other resources which you may find helpful:
Article from NHS Employers:
Supporting our NHS people experiencing stress | NHS Employers
Skills for Care offers resources available to registered managers, including practical and cost-effective ways to support your team.
