Corporate wellbeing initiatives are beginning to move past a token yoga session or free fruit in the office. The pandemic helped shine a light on the mental health crisis facing the UK and many employers are now taking this seriously.

To mark Stress Awareness Month, thewealthnet spoke with a number of wealth firms about the changing attitudes towards mental health and their own policies to support employees.

Marking the change in attitudes, Ellie Pilkington, learning and development manager at Kingswood, stresses employee wellbeing is about “much more” than free yoga lessons and healthy snack options.

“The aim is to create a culture of healthy high performance where leaders recognise that employee wellbeing is integral to organisational success.”

This sentiment is echoed across the industry. David Durlacher, chief executive of Julius Baer International, sees this as an exciting time.

“There is an opportunity to engage in a conversation [about mental health] across the whole industry as it has been a taboo subject for so long,” he says.

However, he was also keen to highlight Julius Baer was taking mental health and wellbeing seriously long before the pandemic.

“We’re passionate about this,” Mr Durlacher emphasised. “It is not just a pandemic phase.”

This sentiment is backed up by the range of initiatives Julius Baer International offers to support wellbeing.

These include:

• Dementia training for all relationship managers.
• Relationship managers are all trained to spot mental health challenges.
• The firm has trained 10 mental health first aiders, one of whom is on the executive committee.
• All managers receive mental health training.
• Each executive committee meeting has time dedicated to discussing employee mental wellbeing.
• Ongoing partnership with Cognacity, an international consultancy that specialised in mental health and performance.

Julius Baer is not alone in offering a range of services to support mental wellbeing. Brooks Macdonald also has a number of programmes to help staff and clients.

The firm trains all its managers to lead their teams effectively and look after their wellbeing, maintaining strong communications, support networks and managing workloads and stress levels to minimise the risk of burnout. 

Training managers seems to be a common theme across firms. Kingswood also includes a module on wellbeing as part of its manager development programme.

Managers receive a bespoke report which provides insight into their current levels of resilience and wellbeing at work.

“A leader can, unintentionally, have a significant impact on the mood and overall wellbeing of the team,” Ms Pilkington notes.

Brooks Macdonald also encourages employees to work when and where it suits them, to support their own needs.

There are also regular wellbeing events focussed on physical and mental wellbeing, such as gym partnerships, mindfulness, and talks with wellbeing specialists.

Throughout the pandemic, employees were given an extra four days off they could use for self-care and each year staff are offered a personal development budget, which they can spend on things like subscriptions to wellbeing apps, personal training sessions, yoga, and mindfulness.

Staff are also encouraged to take a paid volunteering day each year, as doing things for others can help improve individuals own wellbeing.

The business case for improving employee wellbeing is key.

Tom Emery, chief people officer at Brooks Macdonald, explains: “Having happy, healthy employees is fundamental to our guiding principles; we care for our employees, believing that it’s not only the right thing to do but a key driver of our success.”

There has also been a shift in what employees and potential employees want from their employer. Material benefits alone are no longer enough. Individuals want more flexibility, empowerment, support and care.

“We believe that supporting employee wellbeing makes BM a better, more successful business, and employer,” Mr Emery adds.

Creating a positive and open environment that supports wellbeing is not as simple as offering a range of initiatives, however.

“The challenge is not so much the work environment. It is to get people to talk about how they are really doing,” Mr Durlacher argues.

Employers need to create a culture where people really say how they are when asked, and people genuinely want to know how their colleagues are doing. This simply requires more people to be open and start talking more.

“People are surprisingly open when others are open,” Mr Durlacher explains.

While improving wellbeing takes time and will not be fixed overnight, firms are taking positive steps to create a more open and supportive environment.

“My only hope is that this is not a pandemic bubble,” Mr Durlacher concludes.