Stephen Crocker of Norwich Theatre looks at mental health at work

The theme for this year is mental health at work and the importance of addressing mental health and wellbeing in the workplace for the benefit of people, organisations, and communities.

Around 1 in 6 of us experience mental health problems at work. What is even more staggering is that 63% of respondents to Deloitte's mental health research were experiencing at least one characteristic of burnout.

For most of us, work is a vital part of our daily lives, and if this part of our lives is out of balance, it can seep into every other aspect of our lives, no matter how much we try not to let it. It is perhaps inevitable that we will all experience challenges and stresses at work and have to carry on.

However, it is clear, at least to me, that as a society we need to better acknowledge this in a way that normalises proactive mental health management in a similar way to proactive physical health management.

A few weeks ago I found myself like this on a Friday morning at Theatre Royal. 

It was 8.30am and I’d only got off the train from London at 2am that morning and it had been a long week.

As I went to get myself the first of many coffees that day in Café Royal I chose to walk back to my office at a slow pace through the Theatre Royal auditorium.

It was in semi-darkness, no-one was around and the stage empty but theatres always have a magic feeling to me.

By the time I’d walked from seat 37 to seat one in Row C in the circle looking down at the stage and up to the follow spots, I had reminded myself of my core values and why I signed up to do this job and all the privilege as well as challenges it entails.

At Norwich Theatre, we take mental health seriously and we encourage a culture of ‘you do you’.

We also have mental health first aiders on site to be there for our staff and our audiences. We have an employee assistance programme, free yoga sessions for staff and volunteers, and even our Head of Barketing Oscar, a therapy dog who comes in with his owner for their mental health but supports the whole team with cuddles, pets, and a wagging tail.

But being a theatre, I think, enables us to look at this problem through a unique lens, using our innate creativity to be kind to one another and to ourselves.

This month we come to the end of a season of work exploring Kindness through Creativity. Kindness is one of Norwich Theatre's core values, and during the season we explored as a full organisational team how we understand and build a shared sense of the need for a culture of kindness.

We began with a question: What if we view kindness as a valuable foundation for robust, thoughtful and responsible leadership?

Applying a principle of kindness to our work is not a ‘soft’ or naïve action but rather a radical organisational shift. It presented a brilliant opportunity to work across teams to safely challenge, reshape our ways of working and celebrate.

A commitment to kindness also means ensuring that a work/life balance is feasible, and striving to ensure however we can that our people at every level of the organisation can both work well and be well.

Kindness is contagious: the positive effects are experienced in the brains of everyone who witnesses the act, improving their mood and making them significantly more likely to “pay it forward”.

Our work will continue even though the public season concludes. It is important we continue to explore how, as a mission driven charity, the ways we work together are aligned with our mission. When we think of management as training for the future, what changes about the way we do it?

Being driven by our mission and guided by our values gives us fresh insights and a more human centred approach.

We are looking to explore this in Paying it Forward in Business on October 15 This event is for the local businesses of Norfolk and focuses on the potential of kindness in business. It explores what it truly means to pay it forward in our community, how to create supportive working environments, and improve workplace mental health.

It is important to talk about mental health. If you are struggling, please talk to someone, a colleague, a friend, or one of the amazing charities that can support, such as The Samaritans or Mind.

And in the words of Joe Tracini, someone who constantly inspires me in how he manages his mental health, in last year's panto at Theatre Royal: "So, goodnight until tomorrow, and never forget what I have said: That someone's world always gets brighter because you get out of bed."

To book your place on Paying it Forward in Business visit norwichtheatre.org or call the Box Office on 01603 630 000.

*Stephen Crocker is CEO and creative director at Norwich Theatre.