Today is World Mental Health Day, an important date in the calendar to raise awareness of the importance of mental health and encourage action to ensure wellbeing remains a top priority for businesses.

Why does mental health have to remain a priority?

• 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year in England and 1 in 6 people report experiencing a common mental health problem (like anxiety and depression) in any given week – that equates to over 1200 people across the NorthEdge portfolio
• Poor employee mental health costs UK businesses between £53bn and £56bn each year, a 25% increase since the start of the pandemic
• The average cost per employee is £2,000 in private sector organisations – therefore poor mental health is potentially costing a business with 100 employees £200,000 per year
• The cost of labour turnover for mental health-related reasons increased by 150% between 2019 and 2021 and nearly 40% of total employee churn costs are now attributable to mental health issues
• For every £1 employers invest in proactive measures to improve the mental health of their colleagues, it will yield an average return of £5

At NorthEdge, mental health and wellbeing has been at the top of our agenda for the last couple of years. We have made a commitment to understanding how to support our colleagues and portfolio maintain and improve their mental health and wellbeing – which has included mental health training, with over 100 qualified mental health first aiders in our portfolio, inclusion of the topic at portfolio forums (supported by a number of specialist operating partners) and using our influence in the sector to encourage our community to do more in this space. To add to this longstanding commitment, we are delighted to announce that we have formally partnered with Sanctus, an organisation that helps businesses pro-actively support their people to achieve better mental health, and who appeared on our Beyond the Capital podcast for World Mental Health Day last year.

Co-founders James Routledge and George Bettany started Sanctus around a simple mission: to normalise the conversation around mental health in the workplace and make proactive support more readily available at work. The business was born out of the fact that when they needed support as they were growing their tech startup there wasn’t any available – what started as a blog has now turned into a brand that is trying to change the way people view mental wellbeing.

Sanctus now support over 100 businesses, both in the UK and internationally, to provide proactive wellbeing and growth support in the workplace. Their team of high-quality coaches create unique spaces (digitally) within the workplace where people can experience emotional support, build greater resilience to everyday challenges, and maximise their personal and professional development.

George Bettany co-founder of Sanctus says: ‘We believe that by giving people a place where they can fully express themselves in a safe, non-judgemental, impartial coaching space, every one of us can flourish and realise our true potential and we have supported thousands of people to do this at work since we started in 2016.

“We’re helping businesses and their people change their mindsets around what looking after your mental health means and so we are thrilled to be formalising our partnership with NorthEdge after working with them over the last 12 months.”

As part of the partnership, one-to-one Sanctus coaching sessions will be available for NorthEdge colleagues every month. The coaching sessions are a blend of personal and professional development with proactive mental wellbeing support – creating a safe space for whatever our colleagues need to discuss. Whether it is to discuss imposter syndrome, improving confidence or building healthy habits, we want our team to have the right support as they grow their careers and lives as part of Team NorthEdge.

We have also sponsored six leaders across our portfolio to take part in the Sanctus Connected Leadership programme, which has been designed to support people managers at all levels to lead with confidence and create high trust-environments.

Lucie Mills, Partner at NorthEdge, said “Mental health remains a top priority for us as we look to continue supporting the people within our own business, our portfolio and our industry. Our partnership with Sanctus allows us to provide essential and ongoing support for our colleagues to discuss their personal and professional development whilst ensuring they remain focussed on their mental wellbeing. I am delighted to formalise this partnership following the support the Sanctus team have given NorthEdge and our portfolio over the last year.”

To learn more about how we support our people, portfolio, and industry with regards to mental health and wellbeing, read our latest ESG report.