World Mental Health Day 2021 - what we're doing at tails.com

This Sunday marks World Mental Health Day and it’s a good reminder of how important it is that we look after ourselves, not just personally but also in our work environment. The last 18 months have definitely emphasised the importance of having people around you who can support you.

In this blog post, I’ll share what we have done at tails.com to build a supportive culture, where people feel emotionally and psychologically safe.

Getting the right support from your manager

One important part of being a manager at tails.com, is about looking after the wellbeing of their team. We train all our managers on how to build trust with their direct reports.

To help us understand what works and what needs to change, we ask our team members on a regular basis to give us anonymous feedback through engagement surveys. In our last survey, 93% of all our team members said that their manager genuinely cares about their wellbeing.

Knowing what is expected of you in your role can also impact your wellbeing at work. To support this, all team members at tails.com share their priorities with the rest of the team, so everyone can understand interdependencies between teams and individuals, and how each of us contribute to changing the world of pet food for good. We also train our team members on how to set clear and realistic priorities.

Learn how to bounce back

Learning how to respond to negative situations and bounce back from adversity is a skill-set that is helpful in life and at work. To learn how to do that, we’ve designed our own resilience training, based on the latest science, which is run by an external coaching psychologist.

Find support and seek out advice

We’ve made a commitment to offering additional support to those of us who would benefit from getting practical advice or support with mental health, no matter if it’s work-related or not. With the help of our Employee Assistance Programme, all team members can, if they feel they need it, speak confidentially with a counsellor.

Connect with people around you

Mental health is also about the small, but important, things in life. Our Software Engineering team built a feature in our chat programme that every other week pairs you up with a random colleague and encourages you to have a virtual coffee together. I love the spontaneity of having a chat with someone you perhaps don’t work so closely with and this has been particularly helpful as most of us work remotely.

Last but not least

As fulfilling as work can be, sometimes we might need a break to focus on something that isn’t work-related to recharge our batteries. We offer all our team members the option to take one paid day per year to volunteer for a ‘good cause’, supporting any campaign or movement that they are passionate about.

We're constantly developing new practices to ensure we have the right support mechanisms in place for all our team members.