PRESS RELEASE | THURSDAY 10 OCTOBER
Mindful Business Charter attracts 17 new organisations across multiple industries to commit to better working practices for mental health and wellbeing

The Mindful Business Charter will hold its one year anniversary event this evening, Thursday 10

October 2019 in London. Coinciding with World Mental Health Day, the event will celebrate the success of the Charter over its first year and welcome the new organisations as they publicly commit to the Charter. Attendees will hear from Lord Dennis Stevenson of Coddenham, co-author of Thriving at Work: a review of mental health and employers, as well as a panel of inspiring speakers from founding organisations Barclays and Pinsent Masons, as well as byrne·dean, the workplace behaviour consultancy appointed by the original signatories to coordinate and promote the Charter.

The Mindful Business Charter is a movement of organisations collaborating together to change the way they work with each other and internally, to foster better working practices for mental health and wellbeing. The charter currently has 21 signatories, with a further 17 signing from a range of industries at the event on 10 October, which will be hosted by leading international law firm Simmons & Simmons. By signing the Charter, signatories are joining the collective commitment to change working practices to remove the unnecessary stress that can affect employees’ mental health and wellbeing, while also improving effective working and productivity.

New organisations signing the charter are BCLP, Burness Paull, Coats, Coventry Building Society, DAC Beachcroft, Dentons, FSCS, HFW, Irwin Mitchell, Morton Fraser, Nationwide Building Society, Network Rail, Paul Hastings, Radiant Law, RPC, Squire Patton Boggs and TLT.

Richard Martin, director of byrne·dean and leading on their Charter work, said: “The Charter is the one initiative in business that goes beyond raising awareness and educating people about mental health and actually seeks to tackle some of the causes of the stress so many people feel. At byrne·dean we exist to create kinder, fairer, more productive workplaces and so the Charter lies at the heart of our purpose. The Charter works through collaboration – open and honest dialogue and shared learning. The more businesses that come on board, the greater the cumulative impact. It is therefore fantastic to be welcoming these new signatories as well as marking the great strides that have already been taken through the Charter’s first year.”

Speaking on behalf of the founding group, Philip Aiken, Managing Director at Barclays said: “Our initial vision for the charter was to bring banks’ in-house legal teams and their legal services providers together to reach a shared agenda for mental health wellbeing. We are so encouraged to see not only several more of our counterparts signing twelve months on, but organisations across a variety of industries, which will accelerate our goal to see these principles applied in all organisations across all sectors.”

The Charter has the support of mental health charity Mind, the Law Society, Law Care and the Solicitors Regulatory Authority.