Mental health, top of the agenda in CEMEX?s new Health Essentials

It’s estimated that in the construction industry 400,000 days are being lost annually to work-related stress, anxiety and depression and in CEMEX this relates to around 15% of all absences.

Mental health is a topic very much in the news at the moment and is one of the 12 topics in CEMEX’s new Health Essentials*.

The Health Essentials highlight the importance of staying fit and healthy, with ‘preventing stress’ the current topic of discussion with colleagues. As part of the CECA’s campaign Stop.Make a change on 18th May, CEMEX focused on the topic of mental health and have introduced a training programme for colleagues to become Mental health first aiders.

“To date 29 colleagues have attended the 2 day course and 19, the Lite course run by MHFA (Mental Health First Aider) England and this is just the beginning. As we would with a physical injury we want colleagues who may be suffering with mental health issues to be helped back to full health.

“In safety, we ask colleagues to step in and make a difference, so it is with mental health we want everyone to keep an eye out for each other,” comments Andy Taylor, Health and Safety Director.

This is echoed by Hayden Gill, Operations Manager at CEMEX’s largest quarry, Dove Holes in Derbyshire. Hayden, who will soon be going on the MHFA course, asked his colleagues at a presentation on Mental Health “Keep an eye out for your mates, don’t just go down the pub, get leathered and ignore it. Talk!”

It is thought that one way to combat stress is through exercise. May Day bank holiday sees the start of the CEMEX Pedometer challenge encouraging colleagues to get active and take more steps. This is the 4th year of the challenge which runs for 4 weeks and in the past colleagues have taken enough steps to walk around the world. Let’s see how far they get by the end of May.