The Intermediary speaks to Jason Berry about the Mortgage Industry Mental Health Charter’s (MIMHC) mission to boost awareness surrounding mental health, its commitment to supporting brokers, as well as the results of its annual Mental Health & Wellbeing Report.
You were a co-founder of the MIMHC– what was the main inspiration behind establishing the Charter?
As we moved through the difficult Covid period in 2020 our managing director at Crystal Specialist Finance, Jo Breeden, and I began to see our own staff struggling with their motivation and emotions.
Many missed the daily interaction with work colleagues and craved conversation.
Consequently, we rallied around and introduced a regular range of activities which connected people and made sure everyone felt supported.
As we did that, it became clear that the entire mortgage sector also needed to shine a light on mental health which had been overlooked for years.
Creating the MIMHC therefore seemed a logical progression and was something I was passionate about.
In order to have a broader impact and reach, I approached like-minded companies and sought co-founders to join us.
Fortunately, six companies stepped up and every single one of them, whether it’s Brightstar, Coreco, SimplyBiz, Knowledge Bank, Landbay or Chartwell Mortgage Services – they’ve all been brilliantly supportive over the past couple of years.
Setting up the Charter was about finding like-minded people who shared an initial vision.
We needed to help companies understand how and where useful information could be accessed so a support framework for their staff could be introduced, and we also needed to ensure pathways were in place so any individuals who were struggling with their mental health could find professional expertise easily.
Although it is very much work in progress, I am pleased to say our www.mimhc.co.uk website delivers on these initial aims.
Have you seen any improvements in the conversations surrounding mental health and the mortgage industry since you began?
We’ve seen some improvement but it is marginal gains. The biggest measure for me, is how many employers are actually offering some kind of health and wellbeing support to their staff.
Positively, we’ve seen that improve from 54% in 2022 to 58% in 2023.
However, that still leaves 42% of respondents whose employer is either offering them zero mental health and wellbeing support or even worse they don’t know whether provision exists or not.
While it’s pleasing to see some improvement, we’ve still got a massive amount of work to do.
To coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week, you published your annual Mental Health & Wellbeing Report for 2023 – give us your initial reaction to the results.
There are three main elements that stand out for me.
We can still see from the results that brokers are deprived of sleep, they’re working longer hours, and as I previously mentioned, they’re not getting enough wellbeing support.
Regarding the working hours, the alarming thing for me is that 12% of respondents are working more than 60 hours a week – which in the long term must be counterproductive.
Similarly, on the sleep side, you’ve got 58% of respondents saying that they don’t get the recommended 7 hours or more sleep on three or more nights a week. This again will have inevitable impacts on productivity in the workplace.
As you’ve mentioned, the majority of broker respondents felt overworked. Given this market turmoil over the past few months, did you see an increase in people talking about mental health services?
Yes, we had a 40% increase in respondents to our survey this year and we also saw a marked increase in those wishing to supply commentary and their views so engagement was best ever.
Many commented on the challenges of the Q4 period of last year and stated how difficult it was, especially post mini-Budget and ‘Trussenomics’.
It’s clear that this period saw a lot of fallout, with brokers feeling more anxious and stressed. It was a really challenging time to be a broker.
Despite 58% of respondents stating that their company currently has a wellbeing strategy in place, it’s clear that there is still a long way to go when it comes to education – what advice would you give to firms that want to invest more in their mental health support systems?
A great starting point is to become a signatory of the Charter.
It’s absolutely free for companies to sign up and there’s no huge accountability; – all they are doing is pledging to have mental health and wellbeing on their radar.
Once they become a signatory, they will receive quarterly newsletters and have access to the website where there is a significant reference material available which shares best practices and hints and tips.
These time saving benefits are great for those employers who are interested in providing support to their staff but do not know where to start.
Our MIMHC website means they can simply just lift and drop material that we’ve already got on our site.
Some of this material is best practice info which comes directly from the co-founders and from other signatories – so it’s really collaborative.
The material is very easy to access and will certainly help companies shape the support made available to their staff.
To sign up for the MIMHC visit: https://mimhc.co.uk/sign-up-for-the-mimhc/
