Mental health has been a topic of increasing concern in recent years. More and more people are suffering from stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. It’s not just individuals who are affected, however. Mental health problems can also impact businesses, causing absenteeism, decreased productivity, and increased healthcare costs. That’s why it’s essential for companies to take mental health seriously and provide resources for employees who are struggling. One of the most effective resources is having mental health first aiders in the workplace.

Mental health first aiders are employees who are trained to recognise the signs of mental health problems and provide initial support and guidance to those who are struggling. They can act as a bridge between the employee and mental health professionals, helping to ensure that those who need help are able to get it quickly and easily. Here are just a few reasons why your business needs mental health first aiders:

• Reduce Stigma and Increase Awareness

Mental health problems are still stigmatised in many workplaces, which can make it difficult for employees to seek help. Having mental health first aiders in the workplace can help to reduce this stigma by showing that mental health problems are taken seriously and that there is support available. It can also help to increase awareness of mental health issues and encourage employees to take care of their own mental health.

• Improve Employee Well-being

When employees are struggling with mental health problems, it can impact their overall well-being and their ability to do their job effectively. Having mental health first aiders in the workplace can help to improve employee well-being by providing support and resources to those who need it. This can help to reduce absenteeism, improve productivity, and increase employee satisfaction.

• Enhance the Company’s Reputation

Companies that prioritise mental health are often viewed more positively by both employees and customers. By having mental health first aiders in the workplace, companies can demonstrate their commitment to the well-being of their employees and their willingness to address important social issues. This can enhance the company’s reputation and make it a more attractive place to work.

• Reduce Healthcare Costs

Mental health problems can be expensive to treat, both for the individual and for the company. By providing early intervention and support through mental health first aiders, companies can help to reduce the overall healthcare costs associated with mental health issues. This can include reducing the need for more costly interventions such as hospitalisation or long-term therapy.

• Comply with Legal Obligations

Companies have a legal obligation to protect the health and safety of their employees. This includes protecting their mental health. By providing mental health first aiders in the workplace, companies can demonstrate that they are taking this obligation seriously and are willing to take steps to ensure the well-being of their employees.

In conclusion, mental health first aiders are an essential resource for any business that wants to prioritise the well-being of their employees and reduce the impact of mental health problems on the workplace. By reducing stigma, increasing awareness, improving employee well-being, enhancing the company’s reputation, reducing healthcare costs, and complying with legal obligations, mental health first aiders can make a significant difference in the workplace. Investing in mental health first aid training for employees is an investment in the future of the company, its employees, and the wider community.

Designing a secure data center takes significant forethought, especially with physical and online-based risks becoming progressively more likely. Here are some actionable considerations that can reduce risks and make facilities safe and future-proof.

Select an Appropriate Location

Designing a data center with security in mind begins with choosing the right location. The area’s crime rates could be a good starting point. How likely will vandals, burglars or other criminals target the newly built facility? Crime rate averages for a given region don’t tell the whole story, but they can highlight particular places to avoid or prioritize.

Once data center designers find a suitable location, they should strongly consider utilizing a concept called crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED).

It’s a well-known option for residential areas and schools but less common in the data center industry. CPTED centers on communicating that a facility is well-maintained, making it less appealing for criminals to target. Designers can get inspiration from CPTED concepts often deployed in communities.

Those could include:

• Installing fencing to designate clear boundaries
• Ensuring data center properties remain well lit
• Posting prominent signage to direct visitors to the main entrance

Many CPTED objectives also center on having a strong presence in the neighborhood. That way, community members feel compelled to voluntarily play a part in keeping the data center secure. That could involve having a local monitoring program where people use a dedicated phone number to report suspicious activity.

However, the emphasis on community involvement makes it necessary for designers and other involved professionals to engage with anyone feeling upset about a data center coming to a particular location. Ignoring strong resistance from residents, political officials and other community members could make the data center less secure because people are more willing to target it.

Use Hardening Principles to Design a Secure Data Center

Hardening encompasses efforts to make data centers more resilient against physical attacks. That could mean working with engineers to ensure the facility remains intact after structural failures. That approach helps people inside stay safer from events like building collapses. Teams that need to design a secure data center must consider the most likely adverse outcomes and how to prevent them.

Some professionals recommend data centers have at least seven layers of physical security. They are surveillance cameras, intruder detection systems, vehicle traps, auditable access controls, full authentication measures, physical barriers and 24/7 security guards. A data center uses hardening principles well if it features multiple preventive measures to stop unauthorized access.

Risk assessments of planned data centers may also indicate the need to protect the facility from bombs or other terrorist acts. Such cases usually require reinforcing the data center with steel in concrete. Designers may even choose to put the data centers underground. Those facilities are generally more secure than above-ground ones, but they still require stringent precautions against intrusion.

One week in 2021 had more than a dozen bomb threats against data centers in the United States and Canada. None involved explosives, but those instances illustrate the need for preparedness. Criminals increasingly realize how important these facilities are to modern society, increasing the chances they’ll set their sights on them.

Collaborate With Cybersecurity Teams

Anyone asked to design a secure data center should work closely with cybersecurity experts to understand how decisions may help or hurt cybersecurity. The things internet security teams do to keep data centers safe have evolved over the years, particularly as technological options improve. For example, it’s increasingly common to use artificial intelligence (AI) to thwart cyberattacks before they happen or make successful ones less damaging.

Some cyberattacks happen through physical means. As recently as 2022, attackers were mailing infected USB drives to targets. They hoped to entice people to use them on their computers and install malware. However, criminals could also try to launch a cyberattack through physical means, such as by posing as service providers or others typically given temporary access.

Consider the Layered Method to Design a Secure Data Center

One best practice is using a five-layered approach to secure data center systems. It breaks measures down into categories and involves covering the following aspects of the facility:

• Physical: This layer intends to stop in-person intrusion attempts and uses means such as security cameras and multifactor authentication-based access controls.

• Logical: This layer represents everything to do with the operating system. It involves preventive measures such as patching or removing older networks and using good password management practices.

• Network: This layer represents the gateway attackers can use to launch their attacks if not properly secured. It includes elements such as firewalls, routers and switches. Options for preventing attacks include removing unused network interfaces and using microsegmentation to limit the spread of any successful attacks.

• Application: This layer is solely about securing applications and database-related systems. One best practice is to have separate environments for development, production and testing. Another is to use logs to capture changes made to applications and databases. It’s then easier to spot potential anomalies.

• Information security: This layer ensures people perform the correct checks on the previous four layers. That means reviewing internet security policies, verifying that appropriate defense mechanisms remain in place, and looking over strategies surrounding using and handling of sensitive data.

The all-encompassing nature of the layered approach typically makes it inappropriate and infeasible for the design team to solely oversee all these factors. However, they can provide ongoing input relevant to their expertise when engaging in collaborative discussions across groups or with those working on the data center project externally.

Be Prepared to Learn and Apply Lessons

People must apply careful thought and best practices to design a secure data center. The individuals involved in such projects will undoubtedly learn many lessons along the way. However, the good news is that they can and should keep track of associated successes and failures. Such circumstances will contain valuable lessons that people can use to inform future data centers they design or ensure their current projects have the best possible outcomes.

Also, people new to this undertaking should strongly consider learning how to design a secure data center from experts who have done it many times before. That may mean working with consultants or people with specialized knowledge. They can help design team members avoid pitfalls and overcome obstacles in the most efficient and practical ways.

Emily Newton is the Editor-in-Chief of Revolutionized, an online magazine celebrating innovations in the industrial sector. She has over 5 years of experience showing how technology is changing the construction and manufacturing industries.

Recruiting for a startup is one of the first and most rewarding hurdles to overcome in a new business, whether in tech or fabrication. To propel your dreams that may have been developing in your entrepreneurial mind for years, you need some help. But the job market is troubled and quality talent is hard to find.

Fortunately, there are tech tools and strategies to optimize your hiring process, no matter the size of your enterprise. Startups can enjoy time and money saved by researching – before hiring new talent – ways to make your startup hiring process streamlined, fair, and effective.

1. Create a Wishlist

One of the most efficient ways to sift through copious amounts of candidate information is to create filters from a wishlist. Using technology can automatically eliminate any candidates who do not fit certain criteria.

Each person hired costs $4,700 on average, so being strict with your company’s values and desires will help mitigate those costs. These wishlists don’t have to be just hard skills, either, like having a certain academic degree. They could also represent company culture, such as individuals who have added specific skills to online applications, such as problem-solving and team-building.

2. Solidify Your Brand Identity

Even if you do not yet have a graphic designer or creative team, there are free online tools to help build a brand identity. You can choose fonts, colors, and iconography that speak to your brand’s mission. You will also want to consider brand voice because social media can be a profitable and organic way to publicize your job openings. The style you post in could entice professionals to research further.

Free graphic design tools like Canva, GIMP, and Photopea – and countless free brand identity brainstorming templates – can jumpstart any branding campaign until you hire more qualified staff. Professionalism will go a long way in helping candidates be tempted to apply, especially if they know you’re investing time in creating a company that will thrive for the long term.

3. Make Specific Job Descriptions

Vague requirements in job descriptions are attractive to employers since it requires less effort to be specific. To applicants, it could reveal the employer hasn’t given the position enough consideration. Therefore, the responsibilities of entrants could be muddled. Non-specific descriptions can lead to a surplus of applications that could become impossible to manage.

Job candidates want transparency in job descriptions, such as specific job titles, salaries, and explicitly mentioning company benefits. This means putting exact starting salary information instead of a range.

Especially with startups that don’t have household name recognition, it helps create credibility with employers to load descriptions with information. Startups have inconsistent reputations, and this provides applicants with the sense that they shouldn’t fear submitting because they know the company is stable.

4. Get Immediate Face-to-Face Contact

The pandemic forced the adoption of higher-quality video conferencing tech for video interviews and allowed professionals to network digitally, unlike in previous years.

Startups can use platforms like Facebook and MeetUp to find local career events for meeting candidates in person without wasting time scheduling and sifting through applications. Embrace the value of going to in-person hiring events, as it helps employers get genuine first impressions that a written online interview may not reveal.

It also helps put text to faces. Most applications are screen-focused, and job-seekers have unique personalities and concerns that aren’t reflected in an automated application.

5. Implement Smart Screening Software

Automate processes that aren’t worth your time. You’ll save hours by leaving various responsibilities to different software. Many career platforms like Indeed and LinkedIn use applicant-tracking software (ATS) to expedite processes like:

• Creating a talent pipeline
• Optimizing application flow
• Gathering applicant intelligence
• Sending automated communications
• Advertising positions
• Requesting paperwork and tasks

AI is even helping refugees obtain jobs because it can analyze the gaps between languages. It allows everyone worldwide – especially as remote jobs become more commonplace – to communicate easily while providing equal opportunities worldwide.

6. Highlight What Professionals Want

Job seekers are looking for more than just salaries from workplaces nowadays. They look for flexible schedules, work-life balance, ongoing learning opportunities, and definite career advancement. The Great Resignation proves that new and seasoned professionals are realizing employers should have greater respect for their workers.

You can decrease turnover and simplify startup hiring by being as honest as possible so professionals with specific and high standards know what they’re signing up for when they apply. This involves creating an employee value proposition (EVP) or a portfolio of what comes along with their job offer.

Avoid candidate rejections after weeks of wasted time when they find the salary or remote work opportunities aren’t what they expected.

7. Don’t Ignore Onboarding

The hiring process isn’t just about the interviews – plenty of hiring aspects come after you send the offer letter and before your new hire takes on their first assignment. There’s tax information, procedures, and vacation protocols, among all the other rules about your startup, to brief new hires on. This part of the process is easily streamlined with the help of technological aids.

Ignore lengthy background checks and printing out paperwork for drug screenings. Create a robust learning management system (LMS) that houses videos, informational paperwork, processes, and first-day expectations without even setting up a formal meeting.

Smooth Out Your Startup Hiring Process

Startups lack the financial support to engage in lengthy hiring processes and excessive interviews that yield no entrants. Recruitment for startups is highly competitive, as young professionals see the potential in areas like Silicon Valley and sometimes put startups on a pedestal, believing they lead to quick career development.

Startup recruiters are responsible for creating enticing but also realistic expectations, and to provide young professionals with a seamless and transparent hiring process that briefs them on their responsibilities and benefits. Despite the financial and time investment needed to find the perfect candidates, the benefits will become apparent when profits soar in the coming years.

Emily Newton is the Editor-in-Chief of Revolutionized, an online magazine showing how technology is disrupting many industries.