Mental Health and Wellbeing The workplace can have a huge impact on mental health On average, 37% of us feel the need to work or check our and, equally, mental health can have a significant impact emails outside of our standard working day, which has on performance. It is important that we understand and slightly increased from last year (31%). This increases to regularly review how our people would describe their 46% for both the Asia and MENA regions respectively. own mental wellbeing so that we can target the support There has been a significant drop in this area in the we offer. In this section the survey asked people to Australian region from 53% to 27%, while in the European provide feedback on how they perceived their working region this has increased from 9% to 22%. These environment, their job role, the culture of the business, and increases could be due to our people predominantly their own wellbeing. working from home over the past year, which can result in a ‘blurring of the lines’ between work and home life. 10% of respondents do not feel that Cundall is a healthy place to work in terms of psychological and emotional Globally, people feel more stressed (defined as “a state health. If we compare this to last year and analyse it in of mental or emotional strain/tension as a result of more detail, we can see that the figure has dropped for demanding circumstances”) during a typical working day those at management and leadership levels. Last year, this than they felt this time last year. We have seen a greater category reported that 17% of them do not believe that increase in men than women. People at management and Cundall is a healthy place to work in terms of psychological leadership grades continue to report feeling more stressed and emotional health, while this year only 9% respondents during a typical working day however there has been a felt this way. Last year’s survey also showed that 22% of sharp increase in people at non-management grades staff based in Australia felt that their psychological and feeling more stressed over the past 12 months. emotional health is not looked after at Cundall, while this year there was 10% of respondents who felt this way, On average 24% of people reported feeling anxious during which is very encouraging. There has, however, been a a typical working day. This is a slight increase on 18% slight increase in the MENA region, where our staff last in 2019. Over the past 12 months men are feeling more year reported that only 5% of them felt that Cundall is not a anxious (21%, up on 15% last year) whist women have healthy place for their psychological and emotional health, stayed broadly the same (25%). Regionally, people based while this year this has increased to 12%. in Europe continue to report feeling the least anxious (5%). In 2019, 29% of people in MENA reported that they 75% of respondents feel that the tasks expected of them “often or always” felt anxious during a typical working day in their job are fair and aligned with their own skills. If however we have seen this number reduce significantly to we look at the responses by region, this is much higher 16% in 2020. for respondents in Europe (87%) and slightly lower in Australia (63%). In comparison to last year, this has slightly It is unsurprising that we have seen a slight increase in improved, especially in the European region – where we feelings of stress and anxiety as the past 12 months have see an increase of 34%. been extremely challenging for many. It is positive to see that the increases have only been marginal, however it is 55% of respondents feel that they can deliver an imperative that we continue to monitor mental health and acceptable standard of work whilst also achieving a wellbeing as we move forward and continue to provide healthy life balance. While this figure has dropped slightly appropriate support for our people. in comparison to last year (63%), it has increased in certain regions (Asia 73% and Europe 74%). However, there has On average, 19% of respondents felt that they had been a further drop in the UK & Ireland from 63% last year suffered from depression (defined as “feelings of severe to 51% this year. unhappiness, despondence and dejection which lasts for 2 weeks or more”) in the past 12 months. This has reduced 69% of respondents are satisfied with the quality of their from 22% in 2019. If we drill down to a regional level, we physical working environment, which is encouraging to see see that this figure is lower in Europe (6%) and Asia (9%) considering we have spent most of last year working from but higher in Australia (28%). home. Staff based in the MENA region are most satisfied (77%) and the Australian region are least satisfied (60%). 8 Health and Wellbeing Report 2021