Businesses should focus on championing men’s health as they are less likely to adopt healthy behaviours and seek support from their GP. They are also more likely to have ‘dangerous’ jobs or engage in risky or addictive behaviours.
Take action to support Men to……
Access healthcare:
- Be flexible about times employees can attend medical appointments.
- Promote accessible options such as virtual medical appointments and online support.
- Signpost people to your Employee Assistance programme if you have one.
Open up and seek support for their mental health:
- Encourage them to speak to a GP about their mental health
- Let them know about mental health first aiders at work
- Signpost to support organisations like Mind and Samaritans
- Help them to prioritise workloads including encouraging breaks and email switch offs.
Gain awareness on cancer:
- Encourage your employees to attend cancer screenings and be flexible time wise.
- Take part in cancer awareness campaigns
- Signpost to relevant charities and organisations that can provide specialist support
Stop smoking:
- Promote local and online stop smoking services and allow access to these services during the working day. Services include NHS Smokefree online hub.
Eat more healthily:
- Encourage people to take lunch breaks away from their desk
- Ensure you have places where employees can access or purchase healthy foods
- Provide services for employees to store and reheat food.
- Consider the types of food you provide at events and meetings
Stay active:
- Promote exercise schemes and programmes available through work
- Use walk and talk meetings and encourage staff to get up from there desk.
Manage alcohol consumption:
- Try and encourage people to get support from groups and organisations like alcoholics anonymous
- Don’t base work events around alcohol consumption
- Provide information around how it can be unsafe to drink alcohol and operate machinery
Talk about their health:
- Create a workplace culture that has an emphasis on wellbeing so people feel comfortable discussing their health in the workplace
- Give people opportunities to talk about their health in a private confidential setting through the use of catch ups and mental health first aiders.
- Make sure that managers and leaders within your organisation have the skills needed to support people with health conditions.
You can access more information on this from BUPA here:
