Proactive mental health support on a global level at GSK

Monika, a doctor specialising in occupational medicine, shares her perspectives on supporting employee mental health at GSK

When I started my career as a general practitioner, it sparked my interest in psychiatry and wellbeing in the workplace. From there I trained as an Occupational Health Specialist, practicing in both the public and private sectors. Now in my current role as the Head of Health and Wellbeing in Europe for GSK and a doctor; I bring my medical knowledge, experience, and insights to GSK, which helps me to understand and support our employees’ health and wellbeing. I play a significant role in shaping the global mental health strategy for GSK, leading our teams to operationalise these strategies. I’m passionate about mental health in the workplace and to take GSK’s vision and policies forward.

Just like physical health, mental health affects all of us. At GSK, we believe that to achieve our ambitions as a company, we need to create an outstanding place to work where everyone can thrive. We offer lots of resources and support including a 24-hour confidential telephone help line, mindfulness, and proactive support to manage energy and resilience. We are serious about ensuring our workplace enables and supports everyone to be at their best, we do so by offering a variety of programmes and services and ensuring our managers are trained.

Our mental health training helps to provide everyone with the tools they need to start conversations with confidence, spot signs early and signpost resources. Nearly 85 percent of our managers have now completed this training.  Equally, it is just as important to encourage employees to talk to their managers and to check in with themselves and others when they need support. That’s why we encourage all employees to take the training.

We are also proud to be a founding partner of the mental health organisation ‘This Can Happen’, who support employers and employees across the world to create a positive environment for good mental health in the workplace.

We have a presence on their advisory executive board and sponsor their annual mental health conferences, helping to shape the content. We extend the invitation to our employees, attending the conferences together so we can all be inspired by mental health insights, strategies from other organisations and emerging trends.

We all have our own relationship with mental health – there will be times when we’re thriving, and times when we need support. It’s about being flexible and having resources in place to support our employees. Everyone deserves to have an employer who supports them so they can thrive at work and at home – that’s why health and wellbeing is a priority at GSK.

GSK is committed to fair, equal employment opportunity and inclusion of all employees regardless of race/ ethnicity/ national origin, gender/gender identity, disability, neurodiversity, sexual orientation, religion/ belief, marriage/ civil partnership status, age and / or socio-economic status.