The first step to any meaningful change is a commitment that is communicated to others, and meaningful.

If you are the most senior leader, this is your opportunity to mobilise all your organisation.

The United Pledge Commitment involves individuals and corporations making a simple but formal acknowledgement of the need for change.  

To get started, we invite you to take a first step by making a commitment. 

This is at no cost to your organisation, and is a simple first-step to demonstrate your organisation’s promise to your employees, and towards the goal of building a happy, healthy and mentally fit organisation.

There are many ways you can do this:

• Use the example Commitment statements below and share these with your team and colleagues.
• Draw your own canary, sign it and affix it to your desk partition or office door.
• Create your own canary wall (see below) and invite other members of your team and organisation to contribute their own canary drawings.

Making a Commitment

For individuals

“I, [Your Name] acknowledge that mental health presents an ongoing problem, and more can and should be done. I commit to being a driver for change wherever I see opportunities for improvement.”

For organisations

“We, as an organisation, acknowledge that mental health presents an ongoing problem and is a fundamental human right. We acknowledge that more can and should be done. We commit to being a driver for change wherever we see opportunities for improvement.”

1. Recognition - We recognise that mental ill-health is an issue facing our workforce, and we will prioritise this.

2. Buy-in - We agree that our business leaders and management will need to be involved in addressing this situation.

3. Protection - We will protect our employees as best as we are able to.

4. Receptiveness - We commit to seeking feedback and reviews in order to understand our performance.

5. Support - We seek to support the early intervention and support of mental health for our employees.

Using our logo & canary icon

We encourage you to use The United Project logo and canary logo’s inside your organisation. Examples include:

• on social media posts
• in your email signature block
• on your website
• company letterhead
• in your office by creating a ‘canary signing wall’.

You can download The United Project logo variants and brand kit guidelines here. 

This is a limited use license subject to proper citation and alignment with brand guidelines. All uses of the logos and marks must use reference: “© The United Project Foundation - www.theunitedproject.net”

   

Some useful mental health at work resources

Please consider these informative resources for your business as you embark on your transformation journey.

• Worksafe Victoria
• Worksafe NSW   
• Business.gov.au - Work health and safety obligations
• World Health Organisation (WHO) Guidelines on mental health at work
• Safe Work Australia - Model Code of Practice: How to manage work health and safety risks

If you’re looking for relevant mental health statistics to reference visit this page we have created for you: Reference, stats & useful resources.

We’ve also published some useful articles here.