Mental Health in a male dominated work place

Mental Health in a Male Dominated Workplace

The month of May is Mental Health Awareness week and I want to discuss mental health in the workplace. BHM Electrical Services is a male-dominated workplace like many other trade base companies which leads to an interesting question How is mental health dealt with in a male-dominated company? It is known that men have been brought up with statements like ‘boys don’t cry’ which has made the discussions around mental health amongst men increasingly harder in today’s evolving society. In this article, I am exploring how male-dominated workplaces deal with mental health and what we as a company can learn from this. Mental Health is a topic that has been growing in information in recent years however, in the grand scheme of things, it is fairly new to a lot of people and companies are still finding their feet with how to deal with this. People of different generations have varied thoughts on Mental Health and what it actually means. An employee of BHM Electrical born in 1996 states “I believe that mental health is the state of your thoughts and how you take care of your mindset. Being able to cope with the highs and the lows”. Leigh Winter, an electrician at BHM and born in 1970, describes mental health as “Feeling positive, being able to see the good things in my life and not letting the negative get me down.” Both of these statements are correct and they have similarities and differences.

They are similar in that they are focused on taking care of your thoughts however they differ in the first describes coping with positive and negative thoughts where as the second filters the positive and negative.
Taking these ideas about mental health and experiencing them within your workspace can cause a huge amount of stress on yourself and those around you. Electricians have to be constantly aware of their surroundings and focused on the dangerous tools they use daily. Live wires, construction sites and working on towers are just a few of the environments they work in and so concentration is definitely needed. I asked some of our employees if they have ever experienced mental health issues in their past or current workplace and how this affected their job. The results varied from being affected by the balance of “Stress, level of workload and also personal issues” to “I have never had to call on any help regarding mental health and I hope I never have to.” These statements in particular show awareness. Even when someone in the team hasn’t personally experienced mental health issues in the workplace themselves, they are still aware of it. This is conclusive as awareness is the first step towards creating a positive and safe space for conversations around mental health but what about someone who has experienced mental health issues?

“Stress, level of workload and also personal issues”

When asked if they feel BHM Electrical Ltd supports their employees with their mental health, Electrical contractor, Chris Snook, was not confident in the company’s support “Unfortunately that’s just the nature of contracting in an all-male environment.” Validating the earlier statement on the struggles of discussing mental health issues in a male-dominated space. After viewing other trade-based companies I have noticed a front-runner when discussing topics like mental health among the workforce. And that is the building material supplier, Travis Perkins (TP). They are a well-established company that are very active on its social media and creates posts around mental health throughout the year for example ‘Time to talk day’ supplies questions to help people have those difficult conversations around mental health using the hashtag #mandown.

This hashtag in particular provides an answer to my initial question on how mental health is dealt with in male-dominated spaces and is something BHM Electrical could take part in, in the near future. Another example is ‘Random acts of kindness day’ where TP asked people to write about their colleagues who made their day, creating a positive work environment and giving a space for communication around feelings and thoughts to thrive. BHM Electrical is a family-run company and you feel that when you are working as part of the team whether that is in the office or out on jobs with the electricians. Our team has three office dogs who come in regularly, greeting the electricians who pass through and chill out under the desk of the office staff. We also have our famous ‘Fat Fridays’ in the office where Peter Cornish usually brings in a homemade cake from his mother or we take turns bringing pastries in from local bakeries in Romsey. This is a form of self-care for us in the office, to finish the week on a high and of course, it goes very well with the multiple cups of tea and coffee! Outside of work, our employees stated some activities that help them to relax and reset. These include walking the dog, bike rides, paddle boarding, playing golf, running, and spending time with family and friends etc. We believe it is very important to create a balance between hard work and the aspects of enjoyment they find in their spare time for example through being able to enjoy conversations with your colleagues at work.

I spoke with the Director, Peter Cornish and I asked him how well does BHM Electrical supports their employees with mental health. Peter has worked for the company since 1986, working his way up to a managing position and so he has witnessed the movement of the company over the years. Peter answered very honestly “Not in the past, but lately, we have been educated more towards this and things are changing.” This reply is very powerful as it shows ownership of the past and willingness to change as they learn about the increasing information on how to support others with mental health issues. An electrician also added “I know people deal with things in different ways. I am sure having worked for BHM for so many years and knowing the majority very well, that I would be confident in support should I need it.”

To bring this article to an end I would like to share a helpline for any who are reading this article and are suffering from mental health or want to become more educated and aware. Lisa Williams is one of our lovely ladies in our office and her husband has recently started a health and wellness company called Mental Health Audio. They offer a service providing audio that gives you self-help advice and guidance. You can find them via Instagram @mentalhealthaudio and also their website www.mentalhealthaudio.com

“We have been educated more towards this and things are changing.”

Read More
Should we switch to EV

Should we all be converting to electric vehicles?

This year, BHM Electrical Services became an approved Office of Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) installer. This means that as a company we can now install charge points for electric vehicles (EV) in homes, service stations and public spaces. Electric vehicles are vehicles that run fully or partially on electricity compared to vehicles that run on fossil fuels. They are clearly the future technology for the automotive industry. “Over 520,000 pure-electric cars were on UK roads by the end of July 2022, and more than 930,000 plug-in models, including plug-in hybrids (PHEV)” Chris Lilly wrote for the Next Green Cars online Green Car-Guide. These numbers are five times the size of EVs we had on UK roads in 2018 (Lilly, 2022). Therefore in this article, I will introduce the OZEV and discuss the positives and negatives of converting to an EV.

Electrical Vehicle Charger

The OZEV are a team who works across the UK government to assist the transition to zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) by providing funding towards charge point infrastructures across the country. The government have a programme set up where you can get up to 75% cover on getting an electrical charge point socket installed in your homes, rented properties and places of work (OZEV, 2022). This is a persuasion tool to get more people to convert to electric vehicles in an effort to reduce the emission caused by diesel and petrol-run cars.

BHM Electrical Services can now take care of installing the charge points due to being approved by the OZEV. Our offices are based in Romsey and we service the whole of the South including London and The Isle of Wight. It is vital to check that the person or company who fits your charge points are approved electricians/installers as this would disqualify your claim with the government scheme. In addition, it could seriously damage your electricity circuits costing you further in repairs and the charge point could in fact be placed illegally. Prior to any installation, the approved electrician/installer must consider the placement of both the charge point and the vehicle. It may be that you need permission from the council before installing. For example, when installing multiple charging points in a workplace environment you would in fact need permission from the council.

“Over 520,000 pure-electric cars were on UK roads by the end of July 2022”

Now it may seem complicated, the idea of having a charge point being installed into your property but consider that once it is installed, whenever your vehicle is sat on the drive, it can be plugged in. Charging away while you’re curled up on the sofa with a good book. No more sat in traffic, queueing at petrol pumps! No more driving out of your way to finding a petrol station with a semi-decent price! No more forgetting to put petrol in the night before, making you late to drop the kids at school and then late for work! (Unless, like me, you work from home, just scratch off that last point.) The argument is although owning an electric vehicle certainly saves you money in gas prices, it has a higher purchase price and will in fact add to your electricity bills.

The power for an EV battery to charge is a large amount and so you may be worried about how much that would increase your current electricity bill. Each automotive brand will have varying options depending on the make and models however, to keep your costs low you can do the following to help: Putting the charge point on a timer, researching free public EV chargers in your area with 1,335 of them being in supermarkets (Goodall, 2022) and finally, only charging at off-peak hours 23:00 – 7:00 (Lunn, 2022). The costs for an EV can be up to you and how you charge your vehicle but generally they cost much lower to run than petrol and diesel-based vehicles. Therefore you will save money in the long term by swapping to an EV.

During writing this article it was announced by Jeremy Hunt (Chancellor of the Exchequer since 14 October 2022) that Electric vehicle owners will have to start paying road tax from 2025.

Transport reporter for the Guardian Gywn Topham reports “Industry figures said the imposition of Vehicle Exercise Duty (VED) could slow the transition to electric cars.” One of the biggest financial positives of purchasing an EV which I was about to discuss in this article is that current EV owners do not have to pay tax.

This news came much sooner then expected however, some are happy to have a definitive answer. Thom Groot reports for the Contributor – “The rate will not stay at 2% past 2025 – but it won’t rocket up either, instead lifting by 1% every year for three years, ending up at 5% in 2028.” Ultimately this indicates that you still save money that you currently pay for road taxes if swapping to an electric vehicle sooner rather then later and that once in 2025 and road taxes do apply they will be significantly lower to what you are currently paying. It is shown that owners of conventional cars will most likely see a rise in VED (Topham,2022) which again proves swapping to an EV would save you money in the long term.

Lets dives into the environmental impact of owning an EV over a conventional vehicle. While countries across the globe set goals around climate change, in May it was said that 17 countries have announced 100% zero-emission vehicle targets or to phase-out internal combustion engine vehicles by 2050. (Igini, 2022) An issue in the early 2000’s when EV’s were first becoming known, was the production and afterlife of the battery. A battery is made up of resources like lithium and cobalt which need to be mined from the earth and as you can imagine this releases a high amount of emissions into our atmosphere(Ramos, 2022). Countries are working on and developing other ways to reduce this emission and the more money being poured into the industry the quicker these developments can happen. Overall the lifespan of an EV is greater then a conventional vehicle and so again, long term, the EVs have a lower impact on emissions. The recycling of batteries after use has also been a big topic “while recycling these batteries at the moment is not an easy task, many resources are being invested in making this process feasible and economical.” (Ramos, 2022).

EV Charging
Read More
Electric bill

Investments for long term savings on your electricity bills

As we all know, post-pandemic life is becoming more and more expensive with gas and electricity bills hitting an all-time high. In September 2022 Ofgem’s data shows “The average UK energy bill is £2,500 per year across all UK homes for gas and electricity.” (Ofgem, 2022). There are many advisements on how we can make changes within our homes and businesses to help us save on these rising costs. For example, turning off standby electronics and avoiding overfilling the kettle (Woodward, 2022) but what about the long-term investments? This article will explore technology and materials that could help save hundreds per year on those evergrowing bills. It may be that this article is directed more at homeowners, landlords and business owners however, these are tips that people who rent can look for when renting a new home or place of work also.

“The average UK energy bill is £2,500 per year across all UK homes for gas and electricity.”

LED Lighting and Energy Saving

Light Bulbs Did you know that on average, lighting adds ups to 11% of the electricity consumption in UK homes? (Ingrams, 2022) Updating your lighting to energy-efficient light bulbs would not only save you money but also reduce your carbon footprint. LED light bulbs are the most energy efficient and use around 80% less energy than traditional incandescents. By simply removing Halogen light bulbs from being sold in September 2021 and shifting to LED bulbs, Gov.uk stated “This will cut 1.26 million tonnes of CO2 – the equivalent of removing over half a million cars from UK roads”’. In addition to being eco-friendly, LEDs have an increased lifespan compared to traditional light bulbs. They may cost more initially, however, they pay for themselves within the first two-three months.

Currently, the UK Government has a scheme running for schools and colleges where grants are being
allocated to help cover the costs of updating lighting systems and other areas. This is to help with the rising costs of electricity and gas bills as well as push towards a greener Britain. The National Education Union stated in September 2022, “schools will have little option but to increase class sizes, cut subject choice and reduce additional support” to cover these rising costs. By updating your own lighting at home you too can have a positive impact on both your finances and the environment. BHM Electrical Services are equipped for these instalments and changes in both homes, businesses and schools.

On average, if you replace all the bulbs in your home with LED lights, you could reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by up to 40kg a year. In simpler terms, this is equivalent to the carbon dioxide emitted by driving your car around 145 miles. The only cons to having LED lights is that they can differ in colour outputs if you have different brands of LEDs. This, however, is a small price for all the good converting to LED light bulbs will do and is something you can quite easily get around: buy the same brand of LEDs. The lights that they emit are bright and instant rather than a gradual increase of light emitting. They create a very modern feel to a room and are a small investment for a long-term win.

Presence and Absence Detection

The need to control lighting in a commercial or domestic space is becoming more and more imperative due to the cost of living. A Presence Detector is when you enter a room, the system detects movement and turns the lights on automatically and switches the lights off automatically when no movement is detected over a period of time. An Absence Detector is a system that is fitted with your lighting where you manually switch on a light in a room and if the sensors do not detect any movement after an allotted amount of time they will automatically turn the lights off however if you leave a room you have the option to manually switch off the light. This makes the Absence Detector more eco-friendly and cost-saving.

This technology is most useful for rooms that have a high footfall as we are less likely to turn off a light knowing other people use the space. Another factor to consider is rooms and areas that do not have much natural light as these are rooms we are in a habit of using the lights during the day. For example, we have Absence Detectors fitted in our WCs, hallways and the kitchen area here at BHM Electrical as our employees are in and out of the areas often however, unlike the main office space they do not spend hours in these areas at one time.

Due to technological advances, these devices are much more affordable now than ever before. (Home, 2022) As well as becoming cost efficient, technological advances have also improved sensors to affect the heating or cooling of a room due to detection of movement resulting in another area of saving you money. In this post pandemic world, where many people are still working remotely, this is now the time to make these investments.

Solar Panels

A Solar Panel captures the sun’s energy and converts it to the power you need for heating and electricity. This is also known as renewable energy. The science behind Solar Panels is incredibly interesting and in its simplest form when light hits the surface of the panels a flow of electricity is created. Out of all the products and technologies to invest in, solar panels are the largest investment to make but as you can imagine, the largest savings in the long term. There are many variants that would decipher how much purchasing and fitting solar panels to your home or workplace would cost including, the size and number of panels, the type of solar panel and the complexity of installing them etc. It is also very dependent on the area of the country you live in as to how much you save. For example, in the South, we have longer daylight hours compared to Aberdeen. With this in mind, Solar Panels will pay for themselves within 8 – 10 years (Solar Service Solutions, 2023). On one hand, the initial costs are around £5,500, on the other hand, you can save £400-£600 a year on your electricity and gas bills. We understand this option isn’t the most affordable but the results really do show. Since 2020 the UK Government has created a system where if you generate more power than you need, you can sell it back to the National Grid. This is called Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) and definitely something to investigate further if you are serious about fitting solar panels. This means that on top of saving you money and being a renewable source of energy, you can also get paid for having excess energy that your solar panels generated. As they generate energy during the day, it becomes cheaper to run machines like a washing machines during this time. (Energy Saving,2023) If you’re not usually home during the day then timers can be set to these appliances so that they coincide with the Solar Panels’ most efficient timings. Last year BHM made the next step to becoming a carbon-neutral company by having Solar Panels fitted to the roof of our office in Romsey. We have already noticed the difference in a few months and it is something we would definitely recommend to other companies and homeowners.

Smart Thermostats

This is an upgrade to your typical thermostat; a device that is connected to your boiler to control your central heating. The Smart aspects result in user friendly changes and smarter ways to monitor your home’s energy usage. Thermostats are typically attached to a wall inside your home however Smart Thermostats can now be remote via an app downloaded to your phone or other smart device. This means you are able to control your heating from anywhere. From your bed, once you’ve left the house or even from the bathroom on the toilet! Having this element of control and the flexibility of having it on you at all times gives you the power to control your energy output therefore saving you money and reducing your carbon footprint. “Smart thermostats typically cost between £140 and £200. Costs vary between suppliers, models, current offers and whether you are a customer of the company already” (Lunn.E, 2023) This is much more affordable then installing Solar Panels however the more updated the Smart Thermostat, the more features they include hence the more expensive ones will most likely save you more money in the long term. After a short period of time the Smart Thermostat can give you readings of your energy usage, giving you a visual of the peaks and dips of when you have the heating on. This is something you can review and make changes as a result to further decrease your energy bills. Another feature is a ‘Zoned Heating’ technology which heats a room separately therefore if you know you will be in the living room all evening you can heat this room without having to heat the entire downstairs of the house. Majority of the newest models can also attach to your hot water, giving you a view on how much is used and how you can control the output remotely. The EcoExperts say “If all UK homes had one, we could cut up to 18.3 million tonnes of CO2 per year”m(J.Jackman, 2023) Can you even imagine the sort of positive impact that would have on our planet? And that is just in the UK alone. It is estimated that you would save around £154 per year if you are to install a Smart Thermostat. BHM advises you to research into the different brands available and to make sure they would work with your current boiler’s brand. A Smart Thermostat shouldn’t need much maintenance after purchasing either and has longevity. This truly is a smart purchase to save you money, time and reduce your carbon footprint.

To summarise, this list of investments ranges in price from affordable to something you may have to save up for. However, they all reduce carbon emissions, they all have increased longevity compared to products you may currently have and finally, they all will save you large amounts of money in the long term. These rising costs are affecting us all and so now is the time to make these clever investments. With these changes, you can set yourself and your homes or businesses in a better financial and economical position.

If you live in the South of the UK or the Isle of Wight and are interested in getting LED Lights fitted or Presence and Absence Detectors fitted, BHM Electrical Services Ltd can be of service. You can check out our website www.bhmelectrical.co.uk or contact our friendly office team via email at office@bhmelectical.co.uk for further information or questions.

Read More
Click to Call