From intent to action: how high-risk industries are redefining mental health at work

Most organisations in high-risk industries have had the conversation about mental health. The harder part is knowing where to start, what to prioritise, and how to build something that outlasts a single training day.

This one-hour live panel brought together three senior HR and safety leaders from maritime, offshore and renewables to share what the journey has actually looked like - the resistance they met, the structures that helped, and the moments that made it real.

Mental health, built into how you operate

Mental health is not a campaign month or an HR policy. It is part of how teams perform, how crews stay, and how people come back after a hard rotation. Our mental health at work practice gives leaders in maritime, offshore energy and logistics the practical skills to spot early warning signs, support colleagues with confidence, and build the team culture that holds under pressure.

Spot the signs, open the conversation, signpost with confidence

Mental health challenges may show up as a colleague going quiet offshore, someone snapping under pressure, or a team slowly losing its edge. Our psychologist-built mental health first aid course gives supervisors, team leaders, and crews the practical skills to recognise early signs of distress, have the conversations that matter, and guide colleagues to professional support, with one-on-one counselling available after completion.

Good culture isn’t created by chance, it’s created on purpose

Operational pressure and organisational change put real strain on people, and when leaders do not have the tools to respond, the cost shows up fast in burnout, miscommunication, sick leave and safety incidents. A balanced workplace discipline helps organisations across maritime, offshore energy, and logistics develop self-aware leaders who can support mental health, psychological safety, inclusion and post-incident recovery as part of how their teams work every day.

A starting point that scales across the workforce

For organisations not sure where to begin, our mental health awareness e-learning is the low-friction first step. Self-paced and built specifically for workforces in isolated, shift-based and high-risk roles, it covers what mental health is, how to recognise challenges in yourself and others, and practical strategies to maintain wellbeing at work, grounded in the WHO, ILO and ISO 45003 frameworks that regulators and clients increasingly expect employers to evidence.

Silence costs more than the conversation

In high-pressure industries, mental health is tightly linked to how teams operate, yet it is often the one thing nobody talks about on shift. This expert voices article draws on conversations with offshore leaders, deck officers and rig managers to make the case that mental health is a leadership skill, not a clinical one, and shares the practical steps frontline leaders can take to open the conversation, notice behaviour change, and build a culture where strength is not measured in silence.

For the leader ready to move from intent to action

This is the toolkit we built for the leader, HR manager, or HSE lead who is past the "why" and ready to move on the "how." Our practical guide to championing mental health in your organisation lays out a five-step framework grounded in WHO guidelines, the Gard Crew Wellbeing Survey, and Maersk Training's global Mental Health First Aid delivery, with one statistic that reframes the whole conversation: only 5% of struggling workers seek professional counselling, which means your peer support network is the real front line.