What a ‘Life Event Policy’ is and why you should write one.

Today I'm going to talk about life events.

Now in my work in health, mental health and well being over the years, I believe that life events and managing employee life events is a way to nip most health and mental health programs in the bud. What do I mean by this?

So most of the mental health issues that I see within organizations have generally started after the person has undergone a life event. And that can be anything from a miscarriage to a cancer diagnosis to a parent having a four, but it's usually some form of life event that can often trigger a health and mental health problem.

Most organizations tend to work with what I jokingly call a kind of Heathrow Airport model of capacity. Now, what do I mean by that? Heathrow, as we all know, runs at 97% capacity. That means that when there is a problem at the airport, it takes a much longer for the airport to get back to normal services and overcome the problem because it's running at such tight capacity. If it was running at 80% capacity, then there's flex and bandwidth to get all of the planes back together.

Now my experience of work is that most organizations tend to work people at around 97% or Heathrow capacity, which is great when you're on top for when you're physically well when you're mentally well. But if something happens to you, either you become physically or mentally unwell, or you have something that impacts you outside of work, I mean, parenthood and motherhood is a great example of the derailing of many people's careers after a life event.

But why Jokes aside, you know, managing people through life events during the employee lifecycle is what is needed to actually net most health and mental health programs and the problems in the bad. Because what I often see is if you don't support people through these big life events, good and bad, then often performance can slip and performance then moves into a mental health issue and the whole thing derails. So I noticed that a couple of weeks ago, a sauce, the fashion company had unleashed a load of really progressive new policies.

Their policies covered everything from fertility, to cancer diagnosis to gender reassignment, but in my book, it was the first really progressive attempt, not that there aren't any other good ones out there. But to recognize that an employee needs supporting through life events, you're gonna get much more engaged, happy, healthier, and mentally well employees if your policies are supporting people, and giving them that extra capacity and bandwidth to deal with health and life events before they trigger health and mental health problems.

I would like to see some really progressive life event policies being written over the next few years. I'd love your thoughts on this comments below.

And as always, I like a challenge, so let me know whether you agree or disagree. Thanks, bye.