Mental health: new year, new attitudes

This year, many property firms are planning to implement new mental health initiatives. Gerald Eve is poised to launch obligatory mental health training for its employees next month, while intu is looking at piloting a wellbeing programme for 200 staff members. The sector has not been the fastest to prioritise its employees’ mental health though. Out of the almost 1,000 UK employers that have signed up to mental health discrimination charity Time to Change, only 2% of these are from the property and construction sectors. But things are slowly changing. More property companies are recognising that mental health is a serious business issue, with sick days connected to work-related stress, depression or anxiety costing the UK nearly £35bn a year. In 2019, several say they will make mental health more of a focus. Here, EG looks at what a handful are doing. GVA Property agency GVA offers mental health first aid awareness courses, which around 40 people in the business have attended so far through its membership with AXA PPP’s employee wellbeing initiative. It has also launched the GVA Grow mentoring programme in recent weeks. This aims to improve communication between employees by encouraging them to share their experiences. Gerry Hughes, chief executive of GVA, said: “I’m not an expert on it but I can surmise that, as an industry, it is becoming more stressful in many ways. Like every professional services sector, or any part of a business, we are switched on all the time. Communication is instantaneous; the expectation on responding is nearly 24 hours a day across continents, which can be very wearying. “It’s important to tackle the issue of mental health in the round, in terms of creating a more considered and open working environment, where people feel they are listened to and doing something with purpose. “Making people recognise they are making a real contribution to society is important; to give people a sense they are part of something bigger – not just in a business as a cog in the wheel and generating profits, but doing something more.” Landsec Since relocating its London office to 100 Victoria Street, SW1, last year, Landsec has made a renewed push to focus on the wellbeing of its staff. As part of the move, the firm introduced mental first aiders and it is aiming for one in 10 of its staff to sign up to do a course to enable them to spot colleagues struggling at work. The company’s chief executive, Robert Noel, is on the board of the government’s Inclusive Economic Partnership, which brings together big business and social charities to address tough societal questions such as mental health. Landsec is the only property company on the 13-strong board. The company’s head of sustainability and public affairs, Caroline Hill, says: “Mental health is a key focus of this government initiative, which also looks at workforce and financial inclusion. “It is an opportunity for different social enterprises to meet big business so we can try and test some of their ideas. We have, as a result of IEP, run a This is Me campaign, which aims to break down the stigma of talking openly about mental health.” Intu The retail-focused REIT is piloting a mental health first aider role at its Trafford Centre in Manchester amid a rise in student mental health issues. Intu says 90,000 young people visit its student shopping nights at the start of each academic year. Over Christmas, it also collaborated with social enterprise The Blurt Foundation to provide advice to customers and staff on managing their wellbeing. Blurt’s guide for dealing with stress, loneliness and grief at Christmas was handed out at customer service desks at intu’s 14 UK shopping centres and distributed to intu staff throughout December. This year, intu plans to extend the Blurt partnership to include training to support the mental health of its staff and customers. It is also looking at a pilot programme for 200 staff in order to equip managers to understand and recognise how they can support people’s wellbeing, as well as interactive workshop where staff can learn about self-care. If successful, this will be rolled out across the UK.  Gerald Eve The property agency signed up to the Time to Change pledge in May 2017. HR director Sarah Draper said: “The pledge got board buy-in and was signed by our senior partner, who spoke to the company about mental health.” The firm also offers counselling sessions through its employee assistance programme, which has been running for eight years. Additionally, all graduates are offered sessions on financial planning as part of their induction. “There’s a big element of stress around finance, it is daunting for students to come out of university with £40,000-£50,000 worth of debt,” said Draper. More recently, it has started offering confidential one-to-one telephone sessions with a trained counsellor and this year it is bringing in obligatory mental health training for the first time. “We have booked a three-and-a-half hour course that will be obligatory for all line managers. We are not here to diagnose mental health, we are here to support people and signpost them for the right help and support.” Moda/Hero Wellbeing The build-to-rent specialist practises what it preaches. It has signed up to Hero Wellbeing – a digital platform that can boost wellbeing by tracking various health metrics and creating a community – for its employees and also employs Hero’s services for some of its residential schemes. Hero founder Joe Gaunt said: “We work with Moda both on an employer basis and on some of their residential sites. It is an important point that the company itself is also investing in its own wellbeing. “Moda is the first property company we have worked with but we are seeing a huge amount of interest from the sector.  “The platform can do anything. It can track people’s sleep and on the community side it offers a range of services from seminars to cooking nights. “It is important that property companies don’t just offer a tick-box solution such as just having a gym on site. We are working with Moda to create a community.” Barratt Developments The UK’s largest housebuilder offers construction workers and their dependants a free, confidential helpline. In October, the firm organised its own health and wellbeing month to promote mental health. While all members of its safety, health and environment team, along with employees from HR, recently piloted a one-day managing mental health at work course run by mental health charity MIND. The company is also talking to St John Ambulance (which is already a national training provider to Barratt), to discuss mental health first aid training for its regional office staff. To send feedback, e-mail anna.ward@egi.co.uk or tweet @annaroxelana or @estatesgazette