Should mental health in the BAME population be part of the inclusion agenda?

In reality, it is hugely intertwined and integral to inclusivity in a way that is rarely thought or talked about.

Almost ten years ago, to express a blip of anxiety I was experiencing, I shared an article on my workplace’s  intranet, to a 60,000+ global workforce. At the time, I was trying to overcome the barriers I was facing with my mental health.

On reflection, one area I missed – and others continue to miss  – is how the experiences associated with belonging to a marginalised community can contribute to, or even worsen, one’s mental health. Moreover, such experiences can work in tandem with workplace pressures.

As an example, when educating one of my parents about my anxiety (they are from an Afro-Caribbean background),  it was quite tiring and only made my anxiety worse. Why? Well, as a child, our culture taught me that I needed to be successful professionally, that I should always succeed, and even more so, that I should not fail. So, trying to express the difficulties I was facing with my anxiety, while thinking I was a failure, was disheartening.

I have also had conversations with contacts within the financial services industry who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. At the time, they were coming out to their team and family in conjunction. The negative responses they faced from their families led them to move out of their parents’ houses, which in turn, caused them stress and anxiety that they brought with them into the workplace.

The inclusion agenda has always been kept separate from mental health, but as a mixed race male in the United Kingdom, who is also a part of the LGBTQ+ community, there are four things I would encourage individuals and workplaces to do differently, to make them more inclusive.  

The workforce should be more inclusive when it comes to life stages

When something eventful happens in your personal life, your employer should be there for you – providing the necessary tools and support to deal with it.

Last year, reboot, an organisation working to ensure momentum is maintained around race discussions in the workplace and UK society, of which I am a proud ambassador, found in its Race to Equality report that only 36% of financial services employees believe their companies are “fully committed” to enhancing D&I, despite seven in ten organisations in the industry having policies on it.

Clearly, on mental health, and every other aspect of inclusion, the sector has a long way to go to turn inspiring talk into tangible action.

Having more individuals be open about these stages in their lives

The power of storytelling is more important than ever. If I go back to when I ‘came out’, it would have been great to have points of reference to support me in how to approach letting friends / family know (although I understand every individual’s story is different). For me, it would have been helpful to have had a line manager who could express how they previously guided another staff member through this part of their life.

Giving individuals the time they need to explore this new stage of their life

There needs to be more policies in place to support colleagues experiencing seismic changes at different stages of their lives. Already, the financial services industry has changed its approach to things like the menopause, paternity leave and gender re-assignment.

But, what about a day to have time to ‘relax’ or ‘reflect’ just to think things through?

Data drives improvements

Data. Data. Data. Understanding your workforce is truly the best way to understand how to begin any work within the inclusion space. You cannot fully explore or start to build a strategy without the information to understand an organisation.

We all struggle, to different extents and severities, with our mental health, whose roots, can of course, sit outside of the inclusion pillars.

Nonetheless, for those of us whose marginalised identities intersect with our mental health, we need financial services to be more sensitive to individuals experiencing seismic changes in their lives, because, after all, these are the places we spend the majority of our time.

Being open, supportive, and providing the tools for this is integral to supporting the inclusion agenda.

Luke Adebiyi is a reboot. ambassador and business development manager of banking at Capital International Group