Buckingham Group Contracting Ltd (Buckingham) signed the Mental Health at Work Commitment today, demonstrating their ambition to develop a workplace environment and culture where all employees can thrive.

By signing the Mental Health at Work Commitment, Buckingham has committed to achieving better mental health outcomes and a genuine longer-term positive impact on staff’s wellbeing. Buckingham has joined a growing movement of over 1,000 organisations including: Avon Cosmetics, B&Q, Barclays Bank, BT, Bupa UK, Deloitte UK, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Historic England, Marks and Spencer, Pets at Home, Santander UK, Save the Children UK and many more.

Developed with the knowledge and expertise of mental health charities, leading employers and trade organisations, the Mental Health at Work Commitment provides a simple framework for employers who recognise the importance of promoting staff wellbeing. This framework sets out six clear standards based on

what best practice has shown is needed to make a difference and better equip employers to create an environment where employees can thrive.

Ian McSeveney, Group Managing Director of Buckingham said: “To underpin the commitment we made in signing the Time to Change Employer Pledge, (January 2019), we are pleased to strengthen our commitment and values by signing, in September 2021, the Mental Health at Work Commitment. We will continue to ensure that our Employees Workplace Environment and Culture remain our key priorities for positively impacting on their Wellbeing and Mental Health. Following the announcement of Buckingham becoming an Employee-Owned Business at the beginning of September, this is perfect timing that enables the culture and ethos of the business to continue long into the future. Our next steps include moving towards ISO 45003 Occupational Health & Safety Management and Psychological health & safety at Work, managing psychological risks and continuing to promote wellbeing at work.”

Andrew Berrie, Mental Health at Work National Lead said: “We’re delighted to see Buckingham sign the Mental Health at Work Commitment. By embedding our six standards in the way they operate, Buckingham is demonstrating a real commitment to supporting the mental health of those in their workplace.”

We know it can be hard to talk about mental health and seek support, which is why public commitments, such as this one, are so important. With issues like stress, anxiety, and depression common across all employers, regardless of size or sector, we want to see every employer recognise and address any work-related causes of poor mental health among their staff and it’s fantastic to see organisations like Buckingham taking the lead.”

In a survey of UK adults conducted by Business in the Community in partnership with Bupa in 2020, only one in two (51%) of employees say they feel comfortable talking about mental health in the workplace, whilst two in five (39%) report they have experienced a work-related mental health issue in the last year.

The cost of poor mental health to UK employers has been estimated to be between £42 billion and £45 billion, according to the Mental Health and Employers Report published in 2020 by Deloitte and investment in workplace support and interventions remains a key issue.

Andrew Berrie, Mental Health at Work National Lead added: “Many leading employers have found that making a strategic commitment to the mental wellbeing of their workforce not only benefits their staff but also their bottom-line, improving productivity and staff retention. With one in six British workers experiencing mental illness, it’s time for businesses to make a change and start creating more mentally healthy workplaces.”

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Mental Health at Work
The Mental Health at Work website is your first stop for better mental health at work and key enabler for organisations in the implementation of the Mental Health at Work Commitment.

Curated by Mind, the Mental Health at Work website makes navigating the mental health landscape easy through: original content including a range of tips, ideas, examples and thought pieces on workplace mental health as it relates to different

issues, people, and industries; and a growing curated database of over 450 resources from a wide range of providers, to give people the tools they need to take action.

Since the website’s launch in September 2018, Mental Health at Work has supported over three quarters of a million visitors navigate our curated partner resources to enable change in their organisation.

You can visit the website at www.mentalhealthatwork.org.uk

About Buckingham Group Contracting Ltd

With a company history spanning over 65 years, Buckingham Group Contracting Ltd is a major multi-disciplinary contractor with a turnover exceeding £600 million. We are an established Principal Contractor providing a range of fully integrated, versatile and flexible services to Public and Private Sector Clients throughout the UK & Ireland. Operating from our Head Office, near Silverstone, and regional offices in London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Doncaster our services include:

• Sports stadia and leisure facilities
• High quality Building projects (Offices, distribution warehousing and manufacturing facilities) to BREEAM Excellent
• Rail Stations including new build and refurbishment
• Railways and rail engineering
• Multi-storey and at-grade car parks
• Major civil engineering projects including highways, bridges and structures
• Major Enabling and Infrastructure works for development sites
• Demolition and deconstruction projects
• The delivery of complex site remediation projects