If you employ people, you need to think about suicide

“We don't need suicide prevention or intervention training.”

I've heard those words from organisations before.

And every time, I find myself asking the same question:

What would you want your people to do if someone in your organisation was experiencing a suicidal crisis?

Not theoretically.

Not after you've had time to call a meeting, review the policy and work out who is responsible.

What would you want them to do in that moment?

Because the uncomfortable truth is that suicide doesn't discriminate between industries, job roles, organisational sizes or sectors.

And if you employ people, suicide is a workplace issue.

19 lives a day

In 2023, 7,055 people died by suicide across the UK, an average of around 19 lives every day.

For every suicide, research cited by the British Standards Institution indicates that at least 135 people are directly or indirectly affected. That includes family members, friends, colleagues, clients, service users and people who may have witnessed a suicide or suicide attempt.

Think about that in the context of your organisation.

How many people do you employ?

How many people interact with your organisation every day?

How many of your employees have families, partners, friends or colleagues who may be struggling?

How many people could be affected if someone in your organisation was experiencing a crisis?

Suddenly, this doesn't feel like a niche wellbeing issue.

It becomes a workplace safety consideration.

“But we don't need it.”

This is often where the conversation gets interesting.

An organisation might have an Employee Assistance Programme.

It might have Mental Health First Aiders.

It might have a wellbeing strategy.

It might have excellent occupational health provision.

And yet none of those things necessarily answer the fundamental question:

What happens if someone tells one of your managers that they are thinking about suicide?

What happens if an employee sends a message to their manager late at night saying they don't think they can carry on?

What happens if somebody arrives at work in an acute crisis?

What happens if a colleague becomes concerned about someone's behaviour?

What happens if a member of staff dies by suicide?

What happens if a suicide or suicide attempt occurs on your premises?

Who takes responsibility?

Who contacts emergency services?

Who supports the individual?

Who supports the colleagues who witnessed what happened?

Who communicates with family members?

Who manages the operational impact?

Who considers the risk of further harm?

And perhaps most importantly:

Does everyone who needs to know what to do actually know what to do?

These aren't questions designed to create fear.

They're questions designed to create preparedness.

Suicide prevention needs infrastructure

This is one of the reasons I was so pleased to see the publication of BS 30480: Suicide and the Workplace Intervention, prevention and support for people affected by suicide.

Published by BSI in 2025, it is the UK's first dedicated workplace standard on suicide. It provides organisations with a framework for identifying and managing suicide risk, strengthening policies and culture, having confident conversations and establishing processes to support people affected by suicide.

Importantly, this isn't simply about putting a helpline number on a poster.

BS 30480 encourages organisations to think systematically about suicide prevention and intervention, including policies, processes, training, individual safety planning, specialist support and what happens following suicide loss.

That matters.

Because good intentions aren't an infrastructure.

And telling managers to “use their common sense” isn't a suicide prevention strategy.

What should an organisation be thinking about?

For me, the starting point isn't:

“Do we have Suicide First Aid training?”

It's much bigger than that.

I'd start with questions such as:

1. What is our approach to suicide prevention?

Is suicide explicitly recognised within your workplace wellbeing and health and safety approach?

Do your policies provide clear guidance?

Do people know where responsibility sits?

2. What happens when someone is in crisis?

What do you expect a manager to do?

What should they say?

What shouldn't they say?

When should emergency services or specialist support be contacted?

What happens after the immediate crisis?

3. Who is equipped to respond?

Managers don't need to become mental health professionals.

But they do need to know how to respond appropriately when something serious is disclosed.

That might include knowing how to ask directly about suicide, how to listen without judgement, how to establish immediate safety and when to escalate.

This is where appropriately designed Suicide First Aid training can form an important part of an organisation's approach.

4. What are the physical and operational risks?

This is the part that I think organisations sometimes overlook.

Are there particular environments, equipment, locations, lone-working arrangements or roles where a suicide crisis could create additional risk?

What happens if a crisis occurs on your premises?

What safeguards are already in place?

Do your incident and emergency procedures adequately account for this possibility?

5. What happens after a suicide?

Prevention isn't the whole story.

Organisations also need to consider what happens when somebody dies by suicide.

How will colleagues be supported?

How will communication be managed?

How will managers respond to grief, shock and potentially traumatic experiences?

How will you identify people who may be particularly affected?

And how will you reduce the risk of further harm?

BS 30480 specifically recognises the importance of supporting people affected by suicide, including following a suicide loss.

Some industries are already recognising the risk

I see this particularly clearly in the railway sector.

Through my work with railway organisations, I've seen significant investment in suicide prevention, intervention and awareness.

There is a recognition that the environment itself can present particular risks and that prevention requires more than simply asking people to look after their mental health.

But I'd make an important point here:

You don't have to work on the railway for suicide to be a workplace safety issue.

Every sector has people.

Every organisation has people who have lives outside of work.

People experience relationship breakdowns, financial difficulties, bereavement, mental health difficulties, physical illness, trauma, domestic abuse, workplace pressures and a whole range of circumstances that can affect their ability to cope.

And sometimes, someone reaches a point where they are considering suicide.

It could be someone sitting opposite you in a meeting.

It could be a colleague you've worked with for ten years.

It could be a manager.

It could be your newest employee.

It could be the person who everyone describes as “the last person you'd expect”.

Suicide doesn't arrive with a job title attached to it.

Don't wait for the incident

Perhaps the biggest mistake an organisation can make is waiting until something happens before deciding what its response should be.

We don't take that approach with other significant workplace risks.

We don't say:

“We've never had a fire, so we don't need a fire procedure.”

We don't say:

“Nobody has had an accident with that equipment before, so we don't need to consider the risk.”

We identify hazards.

We assess risk.

We put controls in place.

We train people.

We establish procedures.

We review them.

So why should suicide be treated differently?

This doesn't mean creating a culture of fear.

It means creating a culture of preparedness, competence and care.

The question I want organisations to ask

So, rather than asking:

“Do we need suicide prevention training?”

I'd encourage organisations to ask:

“If someone in our organisation experienced a suicidal crisis tomorrow, how confident are we that we would know what to do?”

And then explore the answer honestly.

Do we have the right policies?

Do our managers have the right skills?

Do we have people trained to respond?

Are our escalation routes clear?

Have we considered physical and environmental risks?

Do our emergency procedures account for suicide or attempted suicide?

Do we know how we would support colleagues following a suicide?

Have we considered the impact on the wider workforce?

And perhaps the most important question:

Have we designed our response before we need it?

Because by the time somebody is in crisis, it is too late to start building the infrastructure.

This is where consultancy matters

This is also why I believe suicide prevention needs to sit alongside workplace health, safety, wellbeing and organisational risk, rather than being treated as a standalone awareness campaign.

Training is important.

But training alone isn't the answer.

Organisations need to understand their risks, review their existing policies and procedures, establish clear pathways for intervention, equip the people most likely to respond and consider how they will support people after an incident.

That is where specialist consultancy can add real value.

At Hornbeam Workplace Wellbeing, I work with organisations to look beyond the training course and ask:

What does a safe organisation actually need in place?

That might mean reviewing policies and procedures, identifying gaps, developing suicide prevention approaches, supporting leaders and managers, or providing Suicide First Aid training so that people have the confidence and skills to respond when it really matters.

Because ultimately, this isn't about ticking a box that says “we have suicide prevention training.”

It's about being able to say:

“We have thought about this. We understand the risks. Our people know what to do. And if someone needs us, we are prepared to respond.”

That's not a tick-box exercise.

That's safeguarding.

And if we are serious about workplace wellbeing, I believe it is a conversation every organisation needs to have.