In 2013, Barclays launched its “This Is Me” campaign, empowering employees to openly talk about their mental health experiences. Lloyds launched various leadership resilience programmes with measures to prevent physical and mental illness. Santander took a similar approach with an app to support employee wellbeing.
The current Covid-19 pandemic has not been any different.
Goldman Sachs gave their employees an extra ten days of family leave to support “unique personal circumstances”, followed by the impact of the pandemic. Investment management firm, WealthSimple also encouraged their employees to take breaks, switch off and schedule lunch breaks in their calendar to ensure they’re taken.
Bank of America was amongst over 40 CEOs across the US that attended the American Heart Association CEO Roundtable last year to set out strategies to support employee wellbeing. Bank of America also announced last month that it would be offering wellbeing conversations to its junior bankers.
“The pandemic has led to a rise in mental health issues across the globe. The World Health Organisation predicts a further rise for the coming years, so it’s no surprise that we’re seeing an increase in the number of banks that want to include mindfulness and resilience training as part of their leadership, internship and graduate programmes,” says Adam House, Commercial Director – US, at Alpha Development.
Promoting good mental health at work is increasingly becoming an essential part of leadership and management roles. The stigma of talking about stress, anxiety and poor mental health at work has reduced over the decades as more businesses encourage conversations between employees and their line managers.
Almost 70% of UK line managers agree that supporting employee wellbeing is a core skill, yet only 13% have received mental health training, according to wellbeing.citc.org.uk.
Alpha Development’s uniqueness lies in its agility. We tailor and adapt our programmes according to our clients’ needs. Our wellbeing courses can be implemented into your early careers or leadership and management programmes, which we also tailor to align with your core values and objectives.
