How does a large, complex organisation create a coherent mental wellbeing strategy that works? In the first of three episodes showcasing employers taking action on wellbeing, we’re joined by Martin Short, Head of Wellbeing, Inclusion and Diversity at the Defence Intelligence unit, which is part of the Ministry of Defence.  This episode is for leaders, managers and advocates for mental health in the workplace. You’ll hear how Martin created a wellbeing strategy with distinct stages, what actions made a difference, and how you can influence others in your organisation to make wellbeing a priority.  Episode resources:  The Acas Framework for Positive Mental Health  Five ways to wellbeing  Headspace Mental health first aid Speak to an Acas adviser for tailored support Transcript Sarah   Hello and welcome to the Acas podcast, I'm Sarah Guthrie, we are Acas, the workplace experts. And today I'm here with Martin Short, who is head of well being diversity and inclusion at the Defense Intelligence Unit, which is part of the Ministry of Defense. We are talking about mental health today. And what we really wanted to do at Acas is give real life examples of organizations who have headed this question of wellbeing face on and have created strategies and actions which have improved wellbeing in their organizations. So I'm delighted to be joined by Martin who we've worked with over the past year or two on mental health. Martin, to start off, I wondered if you could just explain what Defense Intelligence is? Because I certainly did not know before meeting you. Martin   Sure, Sarah, Well, I mean, intelligence itself is really just the sort of art or the science of helping people make better decisions. And so Defense Intelligence is a large business unit within the Ministry of Defense, and it provides an intelligence function for MoD, so it helps MoD and other government departments make better decisions. And we do that, in order to enable military operations or activities. Sometimes it's disaster relief, sometimes it's provision of aid to other countries, but we provide planning information that actually helps the government run operations. Sarah   That sounds like very significant work, and I'm guessing it can be stressful for your employees. How did you get involved in wellbeing Martin initially? Martin   I think my journey, really, I've done a number of different jobs in the MoD, I've worked abroad for best part of a decade as well, and I sort of came to a point really, it was probably around sort of 2015 or 2016, where, you know, I've been used to sort of seeing, you know, the normal stresses that you get in any workplace, really, you know. We've got staff that have to work to tight tight deadlines, particularly when they're working on crises. Quite often, you know, our specialists are only one deep and so, you know, we can put quite a lot of pressure on particular individuals, and, and also, you know, we've got the impact of constant change, you know, we're trying to date deal with emerging threats, you know, that the world doesn't stay static for any length of time nowadays. And so, that constant change that happens within organizations having to adapt to, you know, the macro environment as well, that can cause stressors for staff as well. But I mean, I think there are also particular sort of issues within organizations such as Defense Intelligence, because there are security concerns, you know, some of the material that we work with, we can't talk about. And so if B, if staff have had a particularly stressful day, it's not always possible to offload to friends or families in the way that might be in other organizations. In terms of effort to sort of de-stigmatize mental health, you know, such staff sometimes worry that if they, you know, fess up to a mental health condition, it might in some way affect their security