Good Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work
Helping People Recognise Their Everyday Ebbs and Flows and Build the Rhythms That Sustain Them and Their Teams
Every working life has its busy seasons and its quieter ones, and the rhythm you keep through both decides how much of yourself you still have at the end.
Good Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work begins with a word Gabriel Morales has written on every check-in he has ever filled in: fine.
A Story-Based Learning Resource: Gabriel’s Story — From Fine to a Rhythm That Lasts
Gabriel is an events manager at a busy agency, known for his energy, loved by his clients and relied on by his team. The agency’s biggest season is about to begin, and his manager has asked everyone to plan how they will come through it well.
The obvious answer is the one he always gives. Fine. Ready. He has done this before.
What he hasn’t yet examined is what last year’s season cost him, the signals he ignored on the way, and what fills him up and drains him in the ordinary ebbs and flows of a working week.
Good Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work follows Gabriel through the busiest season of the year. Through a question from his sister, a week of noticing, three stories from his own working life and a manager who looks beyond fine, he discovers that the energy he was expected to bring and the rhythm he needs to keep are very different, and that the second one has far more to offer his organisation.
Blending storytelling with Reflection Points, Learning Questions, Self-Coaching Exercises and the Good Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work Workbook, the resource guides each of your people through the same journey Gabriel takes. It is designed for independent learning and for facilitator-supported group sessions, with a full Facilitator Guide and a Manager’s Guide that explores the same story from the other side of the table.
Good Mental Health and Wellbeing explores the everyday ebbs and flows of working life, and the small, practical rhythms that help you cope with them and realise your potential. Here, those rhythms come into focus through a Success Story, a Failure Story and a Passion Story, and are brought to one of the moments organisations know best: the busy season.
For Your Organisation
The Challenge
Your organisation cares about the wellbeing of its people. It offers check-ins, support and resources, and they matter. Busy seasons are part of every working year: year-end, launches, peak trading, conference season. Handled well, they bring out the best in people and teams.
Yet people rarely notice their own ebbs and flows until they are already running low. In a busy season, capable, committed people run on energy and goodwill, answer “fine” on the check-in and keep going. The early signals, a skipped lunch, a late-night email, a short temper, the thing they love quietly cancelled, are easy to miss, and easier to ignore.
When that happens, people reach the end of a busy season depleted. Small mistakes creep in. The joy goes out of work they love. And the next busy season begins with less in reserve than the last.
Good Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work helps each person recognise their everyday ebbs and flows, notice their early signals, understand what drains and restores them, and build simple rhythms that sustain them through the busiest times. And it helps managers look beyond “fine”, so that busy seasons become times when people and teams come through well, together.
Who This Is For
People heading into a busy season, a demanding project or any stretch of working life where energy and goodwill are likely to be tested.
Perhaps they love their work and give it everything, and rarely notice what it takes from them. Perhaps they came through a previous busy time depleted, and want this one to be different. Perhaps they tick “fine” out of habit, and haven’t stopped to ask whether it’s true.
It is also for the managers who plan those seasons and support their teams through them, and for the learning and development teams who design wellbeing programmes.
A Note
Good Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work explores the everyday ebbs and flows of working life: the busy times, the quieter ones and the small rhythms that help you through both. It is a gentle, practical resource for everyday wellbeing.
If you’re struggling with your mental health, please speak to your GP.
What Your People Will Learn
- How to recognise their own everyday ebbs and flows, at work and beyond it
- How to notice the early signals that their energy is running low
- How to name what drains them and what restores them
- How to write a Success Story, a Failure Story and a Passion Story that show what sustains them and what doesn’t
- How to put their own rhythm into words
- How to build a practical plan for a busy season, agreed with their team
- How to keep their rhythm through the hardest week, rather than abandoning it
- How to help their team build shared rhythms that sustain everyone
What Your Managers Will Learn
- How to look beyond “fine” in a check-in
- How to plan busy seasons so that people come through them well
- How to model good rhythms themselves
- How to help one team’s rhythms become part of how the whole organisation works
What’s Included
- Gabriel’s complete story, told in three parts
- Reflection Points, Learning Questions and Self-Coaching Exercises at every stage
- The five School of WorkLife practices for sustaining your wellbeing: Self-Awareness, Observation, Effective Self-Feedback, Insightful Self-Questions and Writing Your WorkLife Stories
- The Good Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work Workbook, including the Ebb and Flow Diary, the Signals and Restorers Map, the Three Stories Worksheet and the Season Plan
- A Facilitator Guide with three 90-minute session plans, facilitator questions and guidance on feedback in the group
- A Manager’s Guide, exploring the story from the manager’s side of the table
How This Resource Works
Good Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work is built in three parts and nine stages.
Part One — Discover Your Ebbs and Flows
- Stage 1 — The Busiest Season
- Stage 2 — A Week of Noticing
- Stage 3 — Naming the Signals
Part Two — Develop Your Understanding Through Three Stories
- Stage 4 — The Summer Festival: Gabriel’s Success Story
- Stage 5 — The Conference Season: Gabriel’s Failure Story
- Stage 6 — The Charity Festival: Gabriel’s Passion Story
Part Three — Direct Your Rhythms
- Stage 7 — Building a Rhythm
- Stage 8 — The Hardest Week
- Stage 9 — Shared Rhythms
Each stage follows Gabriel through a moment in the busiest season of his year, then turns to the experience of each of your people with a Reflection Point, Learning Questions and a Self-Coaching Exercise, and closes with time to write. By the final stage, each of your people has recognised their own ebbs and flows, named their signals and what restores them, written three stories from their own working life, and built a rhythm they can keep, and share, through the busiest times.