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Employers and managers should view being a mentally healthy workplace as core to their business success says WayAhead Workplaces Manager, Sharon Leadbetter.

There are many stresses that impact on how we manage our day-to-day lives, including how we perform in the workplace. One of these is financial pressure, particularly for those who are nearing retirement age.

At WayAhead, we are lucky to work with some very keen minds, working on some very important issues. Before the WayAhead Workplaces Annual Members Forum, we had a chance to sit down with Sharon Leadbetter, the WayAhead Workplaces Coordinator, to have a chat about the program and the latest research and trends in mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

The 2016 Annual Member’s Forum for WayAhead Workplaces drew together more than 100 people to hear presentations on diverse topics such as the impact of workplace design on mental health, planning for an aging workforce and measuring the economic benefits of workplace health programs. It also provided an opportunity to participate in “research speed dating” that allowed university research teams to pitch their workplace health ideas to the network membership in the hope of finding mutually beneficial projects to work on. Our 10th birthday provided us with an opportunity reflect on just how far we’ve come since our first meeting in 2006, with just 19 attendees and a vision to improve the mental health of Australia’s working population.