The mental health of the UK population has taken a battering during the pandemic and beyond.
The fallout has affected everyone – including those working in the private medical insurance (PMI) and protection sector.
But how have providers and advisers risen to the challenge to support their staff operating on the frontline dealing with customers affected by bereavement or thinking about taking their own lives?
Last month Alan Knowles, managing director at Cura Financial Services, told Health & Protection about just such a call in January 2020 where a customer told him she would take her own life in future.
He added that after it underlined the importance of speaking to his own staff about looking after their mental health.
It’s okay not to be okay
And it appears the importance of ensuring staff take care of their own mental health is not something that has been lost on advisers and providers during the pandemic.
Alistair Dornan, director of organisational wellbeing consulting at Gallagher, revealed the firm runs a tackle stigma campaign to make it “okay to not be okay” and encourage staff to open up and speak about their mental health.
Gallagher has also introduced a mental health day where every employee has been given a day to themselves, to focus on their mental health and those closest to them.
Andrew Wilkinson, director of Moneysworth, told Health & Protection his firm tries to be as supportive as possible when staff need mental health medical support and urges them to let management know if they are feeling stressed or anxious at all levels – particularly those dealing with customers directly.
And in terms of his own mental health, Wilkinson revealed being outside each day and creative activities help him.
Launch of new mental health policy
Providers are taking the issue just as seriously, with Louise Colley, head of retail protection at Zurich told Health & Protection the firm has launched a mental health policy for its employees with a central commitment to normalise mental health conversations in the workplace.
Colley explained all of the firm’s leaders and people managers have awareness raising training through an internal storytelling series providing insight into how mental health affects people differently.
She added employees also have access to a wellbeing hub, hosting a range of information and signposting support and to counselling.
And the insurer has a team of around 100 trained mental health first aiders to support colleagues and signpost them to further services.
Iain Barton, head of reward, employee relations and inclusion at Aegon, revealed the provider has a programme of initiatives in place to improve staff mental health including mental health first aiders, expert-led education sessions and a range of online resources.
He added the firm’s line managers are also trained in recognising and supporting employees who may be experiencing mental health issues, as well as promoting positive mental health more generally.
Several of the group’s senior leaders have also spoken openly about their own personal stories.
Barton added that during Mental Health Awareness Week in May, the firm ran a series of internally and externally led sessions to open up conversations around mental health.
Time for a brew
Max Marchant, a mental health first aider at Canada Life, highlighted some of the support on offer to its staff handling claims includes mindfulness and Time for a brew sessions where they can talk virtually over a cup of tea about non-work matters.
An interview with sessions also feature where employees offer an insight to senior staff about their outside life.
Resilience training and wellness action plans help staff and line managers spot signs of deteriorating stress.
There are claims pulse checks where staff award one to five ratings every month to see how the broader department is feeling, while a development and wellness community working group reviews the results and works on initiatives to improve the overall feeling people have when coming to work.
Vitality said it offers staff access to trained mental health champions, talking therapies, and has updated its initiatives in response to staff needs during the pandemic.
This included introducing weekly mindfulness sessions run by one of the firm’s coaches, regularly updating the mental wellbeing hub on its intranet and providing dedicated support to people home schooling.
The insurer added it regularly temperature checks teams to collect the data it needs to understand how their health and wellbeing is, including mental health, so it can put in and adjust interventions and support quickly, when needed.
Launch of wellbeing hub
In 2020 LV= launched a wellbeing hub to help its staff deal with the pressures of working from home and before the pandemic it had fully trained mental health first aiders in place to offer support.
But over the past two years, the firm has arranged mental health training sessions for managers so they can spot key signs of mental ill-health and build on their own emotional intelligence.
The sessions are led by the charity Mind and have provided managers with practical tools during the pandemic to enable them to have more meaningful conversations with members of their team, it said.
Meanwhile Aviva offers staff regular communication campaigns, experience stories and seminars around the topic of mental wellbeing aimed at helping to remove the stigma and create an inclusive culture.
They also have access to the Headspace and Thrive mental health apps and its Digicare+ Workplace, which includes the option for mental health consultations and bereavement support.
Colin Fitzgerald, distribution director at Legal & General Group Protection, revealed the provider is a member of independent body City Mental Health Alliance (CMHA).
“We continue to evolve the support we provide to our people, as assessed and measured by the CMHA’s Thriving at Work standards, which report that mental health and wellbeing is embedded into our wider organisational strategy and culture, that appropriate training and accountability measures are in place for managers, and that support is diverse, inclusive and transparent,” Fitzgerald added.
Mind Allies
Axa UK operates a Mind Allies mental health first aid training programme for employees to act as the first point of contact for colleagues experiencing a mental health issue or emotional distress.
The programme includes a dedicated community site to talk things through, quarterly support sessions with a clinical expert, collaboration sessions and ongoing development with the provider’s in house mental health experts to ensure they are supported following difficult conversations.
So far 122 staff across the group have been onboarded on the programme which is overseen and monitored by a Mind Allies steering group.
Fallout from the return to work
Ultimately it seems these types of support will need to remain in place for staff as Naomi Greatorex, managing director at Heath Protection Solutions, predicts the mental health fallout from the pandemic shows no signs of abating.
“I think we will see an increase in these types of issues particularly if people are having to go back to the workplace and are having to get used to different stresses of getting back into work and juggling home and work life,” Greatorex said.
“People are having to change again but they are also dealing with the stresses and strains and issues with depression and changes to sleep and all of the mental health issues we have seen during the pandemic.”
