RUOK? Day gets a boost

Scania Australia is celebrating mental health this week, culminating in RUOK? Day on Thursday, September 12.

To focus attention on mental wellbeing, Scania staff at company-owned branches around the country and the Dealer Support Centre (Head Office) in Campbellfield, Victoria, will be wearing bright yellow RUOK? T-shirts and talking about mental health issues.

“Scania takes employee wellbeing and mental health very seriously,” says People and Culture Director, Michele Gellatly.

“We have a partner supplied Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) which offers our employees a completely confidential range of health and wellbeing services.

“Mental health has a fundamental bearing on a person’s sense of self-worth and happiness, and at Scania we foster a very safe, friendly and respectful environment,” Michele added.

“However, there can be times in a person’s life when emotional, financial or work-related stress can spike, and that is why we offer the EAP service, to be able to help provide a pathway for our staff to receive assistance at the early stages, and get professional help to reduce their stress.

“During the mental health week, we will be providing our staff with positive mental health messages while reminding employees of the services available to them. Of equal importance, we want our employees to stop and ask their fellow colleagues and of course themselves, RUOK?” Michele says.

According to Mikael Jansson, Managing Director of Scania Australia, one of Scania’s core values is respect for the individual.

“We operate a very employee-friendly workplace, with a very diverse population drawn from every corner of the world,” Mikael says.

“Employee health and wellbeing is very important to us at Scania, we want our employees to be able to raise and discuss concerns or worries they may have, not only in their inter-staff relationships, but also issues occurring outside the workspace.

“Importantly, we want to encourage our employees to take action if they feel they need to talk to someone confidentially about their worries, to get help at the early stages, rather than holding off until things become too hard to handle,” Mr Jansson concluded.