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New Zealand’s first ever Dive In festival kicked off this week with its opening event in Auckland, which saw its range of speakers talk about the power of unconscious bias in stigmatising mental illness. This is the latest in a series of Dive In events across the globe, which have addressed a huge spectrum of diversity issues from across the insurance industry.
Participants at the Auckland event included underwriters, risk managers, insurance brokers and HR professionals, who were invited to discuss the responsibility of employers to their employees when it comes to understanding and maintaining their mental health.
Psynapse founder Dr Jennifer Whelan opened the event with a discussion around unconscious stigma, and how negative perceptions can significantly harm an individual’s career prospects.
“Hundreds of years ago, psychiatrists had a very simple typology for people who suffered from mental health conditions,” Whelan said.
“They were either bad, mad, or sad. Unfortunately, our stereotypes of people who live with mental illness have not changed very much to this day.”
“For managers, an employee with a mental health condition throws up all kinds of questions,” she explained. “Is this person capable of handling the pressure? Should I be investing in them? Are they promotable, do I want them on my team? Do I put them in front of an important client? And for the employee, they start to think about what the consequences will be if they disclose their condition.
“This vicious circle becomes a huge obstacle to normalising the conversation about mental health at work, and it’s an important conversation to start having.”
Comedian, TV personality and mental health advocate Mike King also took to the stage, drawing laughs from the crowd and talking about the importance of balancing your ‘inner critic.’ He was followed by Ando Insurance CEO John Lyon, a regular advocate for diversity in the industry, who discussed the evolving role of the employer in employee welfare.
“As our society changes and evolves, the role of the workplace is shifting,” Lyon said. “That change is creating an opportunity for employers, and it is also creating challenge and risk.”
“In any sort of performance issue, you need to look beyond the behaviours to see if there are any drivers that you can potentially influence,” he continued. “I’ve seen senior executives offer to resign because they knew that they were not coping. When the resignations were refused and those people got the support that they needed, they came through those events stronger and more committed to the organisation. Therein lies part of the business case for us being able to better manage these things – if you react to the symptoms but you don’t understand the underlying drivers, you run the risk of losing somebody valuable.
“If we can find ways of helping and retaining people, then that becomes good for business, as well as simply being the absolute right thing to do.”
