🧠 You Need a Strategy, Not a Soundbite: Rethinking Mental Health Training for Managers

One of the biggest misconceptions we see in organisations is the belief that mental health training for managers can be compressed into a one-off session and still deliver meaningful results.

We get it, time is precious, and managers already have full calendars. But when you're investing in a topic that has the power to reduce absence, improve performance, and shift the culture of your organisation from the inside out, the real question isn’t, “How fast can we deliver this?”
It’s: “What’s the cost of doing it too fast, and doing it poorly?”

🎧 Quick note — this episode was recorded before I upgraded my mic setup, so while the sound quality isn’t perfect, the insights are still gold.

🕰️ Why Compressing Mental Health Training Doesn't Work

We’ve seen it many times, a well-meaning HR team trying to condense a complex, transformational subject like mental health in the workplace into a 90-minute tick-box exercise. But the truth is, you can’t fast-track real behavioural change.

When done well, mental health training:

• Builds manager confidence in handling sensitive conversations

• Creates deeper team connection and psychological safety

• Reduces long-term sickness and presenteeism

• Supports employee engagement and retention

• Positively impacts the bottom line

So if you're cutting a one-day programme into an hour and hoping for lasting impact, you’re missing the real value.

📚 What Works Instead: Strategic, Modular Learning

The smarter approach? Break down the training into short, focused modules delivered consistently over time.

Many of our clients choose a model like:

• 90-minute or 2-hour sessions

• Once a week for 4–6 weeks

• With time for reflection and real-world application in between

This works particularly well for online mental health training for managers, where pacing and reinforcement are key. Neuroscience backs this up: when we encounter new learning, we form thousands of new synaptic connections, but if we don’t revisit that material quickly, we lose them.

So it’s not just about what you teach.
It’s about how and when you teach it.

💡 Employee Wellbeing Needs a Strategy — Just Like Sales or Marketing

If you asked your sales team to just “wing it” or deliver one call a month, you’d be horrified. Yet that’s how many organisations still approach employee wellbeing.

Ad hoc employee wellbeing webinars, unconnected one-off sessions, and scattergun workshops may feel helpful in the moment, but without a clear strategy, they’re difficult to measure and often fall flat over time.

Ask yourself:

• What problem are we trying to solve?

• What are we measuring?

• What would success look like?

A structured, aligned employee wellbeing strategy ensures your investment creates the right impact, not just for your people, but for your business.

🎧 Listen to the Full Episode

In this episode, I explore what I’ve learned from working one-to-one with hundreds of people and what truly works when it comes to mental health support at scale.

👉 Listen now: You Need a Strategy, Not a Soundbite
Because this isn’t about squeezing more into less time.
It’s about doing it right and making it count.