Empowering Mental Health at Work: Beyond the EAP

Building Mentally Healthy Organisations in the South African Context

16 CPD Points (including Ethics)

Mental health has become one of the most talked-about topics in modern workplaces.

Organisations have responded with Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs), wellness initiatives, resilience training, awareness campaigns, wellness days, and team-building activities.

Yet despite these efforts, burnout, stress, disengagement, psychological distress, absenteeism, presenteeism, and workplace conflict continue to impact employees and organisations alike.

Why?

Because mental health is not simply a programme that can be implemented.

It is not a once-off intervention.

It is not an EAP.

And it is certainly not a once-off team-building adventure.

Mental health is created, protected, and sustained through the everyday experiences people have within their workplaces—through leadership, communication, relationships, systems, policies, culture, and organisational practices.

This two-day workshop challenges participants to move beyond traditional approaches to workplace wellbeing and explore a more systemic, evidence-based understanding of mental health in organisations.

Rather than focusing solely on supporting employees once difficulties arise, participants will explore how workplaces can create the conditions in which people can thrive.

What Makes This Workshop Different?

• Most workplace mental health training focuses on programmes.
• This workshop focuses on systems.
• Drawing on current research, South African workplace realities, ethical practice, labour legislation, organisational psychology, and counselling principles, participants will be encouraged to rethink how mental health is understood, supported, and embedded within organisations.
• The aim is not simply to provide another mental health intervention.
• The aim is to fundamentally shift how practitioners think about mental health at work.
• Participants will leave with practical tools, frameworks, and insights to help organisations move from reactive support towards proactive, psychologically healthy workplace cultures.

Key Themes Include

• Understanding workplace mental health in the South African context
• Why EAPs alone are not enough
• Mental health as part of organisational DNA
• Psychological safety, culture, leadership, and communication
• Workplace counselling versus performance counselling
• Labour Relations Act Schedule 8 considerations
• Crisis management beyond the consulting room
• Ethical practice in organisational settings
• Organisational best practices for supporting mental health
• Creating mentally healthy workplaces that support both people and performance

The Question We Will Explore

What if mental health is not something organisations provide, but something organisations create?

Join us for two thought-provoking days that may completely change the way you think about mental health at work.