Jayco

Donna Paxton

Historically, mental health has been a very taboo topic. Over the past few years, this has shifted. Companies and employees know that having happy and engaged workers is a priority—mental health is a huge part of that!

One of the biggest things we strive for at Jayco is a family environment. We employ nearly 1,000 people, but it feels like a small family company. People know each other’s names, and even if you don’t—you walk past and smile at another person or say hello. We encourage our management team to do this, and it makes our employees feel like they can openly talk to us because they see us so regularly and know they can approach us if they need to. Our founder and chairman regularly walks the factory floor and says hello to everyone he sees. It breaks down the Us vs Them barrier.

Over the past six years, the senior executive team has set a goal to improve our company culture. We have implemented several changes to help improve employee health and wellbeing.

Health and wellbeing initiatives we have implemented:

● We implemented a nine-day working fortnight, which has had a profound impact on our employees’ mental health. As a manufacturing company, we cannot offer working from home, so this was a great alternative to allow people to spend more time with their families and loved ones.

● We set up an online employee assistance program (EAP) that provides immediate assistance to our employees and their family members.

● We created a new position for an onsite health and wellbeing officer who works twice weekly with employees on their recovery from physical injuries and any mental health issues that the employee might want to discuss.

● We re-did our company values and involved the whole team, therefore having buy-in and accountability for them.

● We implemented birthday gifts for staff, ensuring we recognize everybody’s birthday each week with a small gift their manager hands them.

"Talk about mental health in your workplace—make it a normal conversation. Tell them it’s okay not to be okay! More importantly—build your relationships with your team. Check in on them—don’t check up."

● We created a management reward and recognition program. Each week, we recognize workers who have gone above and beyond and give them a gift voucher to thank them for their hard work.

● We have an 'Employee of the Month' program, where employees are nominated and voted for by their peers.

● We use a communication app called the “Jayco Hub” to share company news, calendar events, memos, and announcements. It is used daily to keep our employees informed. Open communication is pivotal when 90% of our workforce doesn’t have a work computer.

● We created part-time “school-friendly” working hours for parents (and grandparents). This included job-sharing options so that staff could drop their children off in the morning and then be there to pick them up in the afternoon.

● We trained dedicated mental health first aid officers to be onsite to assist when needed.

● We use a health and wellbeing app called “Readiness,” which has a weekly survey for employees to complete and provides a proactive toolkit on the importance of sleep, movement, health, and nutrition. This app is also connected to our mental health first aid officers so they can reach out to individuals who might not be doing so well to help support them.

● Each morning, we encourage our teams to do stretches and warmups. One team decided to implement Zumba dance routines to improve the morale of their team. We ensured senior management attended and got involved, and the boost this gave the team was phenomenal. The smiles they had on their faces were infectious!

● We have also heavily invested in the training and development of our leadership team. This starts at the top with the executive group, second-line managers, supervisors, and even team leaders. Everyone is trained in the same leadership principles, and we focus on having open conversations through improved emotional intelligence.

As I mentioned, we strive for a family environment here at Jayco. Communicating regularly with our staff and having an open-door policy make them feel valued and appreciated. We have so many people who have experienced highly traumatic events, and they always say coming to work helps them get through it. This is because of the support and care we show for them. I have personally experienced this myself and know that there is nothing better than having a group of people around you who check in on you and ask how you are. Even if you don’t want to talk, it helps knowing people care enough to ask.

Talk about mental health in your workplace—make it a normal conversation. Tell them it’s okay not to be okay! More importantly—build your relationships with your team. Check in on them—don’t check up. Ask about their family, their hobbies, and how their weekend was. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to improve your employee’s mental health. One of the most effective ways to make an employee happy is to spend time with them and listen. It does wonders for them!