Employers should ensure they are supporting staff wellbeing and mental health of all staff, considering any language barriers.
Mental health is a hot topic these days and nowadays there is an expectation that employers take precautions to support the mental wellbeing of their staff. There are a number of warning signs that might alert an employer to the fact that something is wrong. An employee’s performance at work could change significantly or there may be frequent absence from work; mental health issues often manifest themselves in physical illnesses.
There are several common mental health issues employers may encounter in employees, such as anxiety, depression, self-harm and eating disorders. However, it is important to remember that employers should not diagnose mental illness and they should always signpost employees they have concerns about to a medical professional who can provide an appropriate diagnosis and give the necessary medical support.
An employer should provide wellbeing and mental health information and this needs to be accessible to all. Clear, concise, and visual information is a good idea. However, generic information is often not sufficient, particularly if employers have a multicultural workforce. Information needs to be provided in a language understood by the target audience. With a multicultural workforce, this may require the translation of mental health and wellbeing information and policies into different community languages spoken among employees. As with any translation dealing with health and medical issues, this needs to be accurate and sensitive to the target culture norms.
“We always allocate a specialist native-speaking translator to any medical translation. We ensure that any translator has the appropriate medical expertise to accurately translate the relevant medical terminology. For the translation of documents about mental health and wellbeing, our medical translator will always have the specialist knowledge and the specific expertise required.” Daniela Engels, Linguation.com
Staff wellbeing and mental health are important matters and employers need to give them the time and attention they deserve and provide relevant information in the most appropriate language or languages.
Chris Mcdonald has been the lead news writer at complete connection. His passion for helping people in all aspects of online marketing flows through in the expert industry coverage he provides. Chris is also an author of tech blog Area19delegate. He likes spending his time with family, studying martial arts and plucking fat bass guitar strings.
