Mental Health Awareness Month is once again drawing to a close. Awareness is good. It’s helpful to acknowledge that stress, burnout and anxiety aren’t just things that happen to other people, in other jobs, in different industries. They happen here too, within the mortgage and financial advice community, and more often than many might admit.
But as ever, “awareness” risks becoming the end of the conversation rather than the beginning. And that’s a problem.
Because if you’re an IFA or mortgage broker, you don’t need a campaign to tell you what pressure looks like. You’re already living it. You’re already getting the late-night texts from clients. You’re already trying to explain for the fifth time why a missing payslip holds up the whole chain. You’re already dealing with confusing underwriter feedback, chasing updates from people who don’t reply, and scrambling to keep up with yet another rate change while logging CPD hours and answering your network’s compliance queries.
Awareness won’t fix that. And frankly, neither will a hashtag.
A place people actually speak freely
The Cherry forum is one of the few places where advisers talk honestly. It’s a long-running online discussion space where they have their own area to speak to peers, share experiences and ask questions. What makes it so useful is its informality.
It’s where people go to compare notes, test ideas and, sometimes, let off steam. And because there’s a completely separate section of the site where providers can post in their own forums, it’s one of the few places where both sides of the industry can get a clear picture of what’s working, and what isn’t.
In a recent discussion, advisers talked about the pressure of trying to be “always on”. Answering queries out of hours, keeping up with product changes that land with little notice, and acting as the single point of contact for clients as well as other involved parties.
There was also a call for more meaningful interaction. If a document is being declined, say why. If a case is being rejected, explain which part failed. It’s the silence, not the decision, that causes the most stress.
Others pointed to the mental toll of working alone, juggling family responsibilities, and planning time off like it’s a military operation. All while trying not to drop the ball on live cases.
Some advisers gave credit where it’s due. A few providers were mentioned for getting the basics right. Knowledgeable people on the phone, clear comms, decisions that actually make sense. So it is possible, just not widespread.
The day-to-day stuff that chips away at you
According to the fifth annual survey conducted by the Mortgage Industry Mental Health Charter (MIMHC), 21% of mortgage professionals said their mental health was “poor” or “of concern.”
That’s not nothing. And it’s getting worse. 62% are now working more than 45 hours a week. A good chunk are doing over 60, presumably the same for IFAs and insurance and protection advisers.
This isn’t rare. It’s not unusual. And it’s not being exaggerated. It’s just what being an adviser looks like for a lot of people.
So when we see shiny campaigns about mental health, the question isn’t “why are they doing this?” It’s “what are they actually doing, and how responsible are they in the first place?”
Because the truth is, lots of advisers aren’t asking for mindfulness apps or wellbeing webinars. They’re asking for their working life to be a bit less ridiculous.
Like, if a case is being declined, tell them why. Don’t just mark it ‘incomplete’ and disappear. If a client’s paperwork isn’t right, say what’s wrong. Don’t make them guess. If a call centre is the adviser’s main point of contact, try to get people who know what they’re talking about. And if someone’s gone out of their way to build a relationship with a BDM, don’t keep moving the goalposts.
None of this is revolutionary. But it would make a big difference.
Just pro-human
To be clear, advisers and providers need each other. And plenty of providers are trying to improve things.
But what’s being flagged here isn’t about who’s to blame. It’s about how the day-to-day machinery of the industry grinds people down. If you want to support mental health, fixing that machinery is a good place to start.
That doesn’t mean solving every problem. It means starting with the ones you already know about, the ones brokers tell you about repeatedly.
And here’s the problem with “awareness”
The problem with awareness is that it can feel like action without actually doing anything. It’s like updating your profile picture or liking a post. It gives you a sense of involvement, of having made a contribution, when really nothing’s changed.
Advisers don’t need more posts. They need less chaos.
Because until things improve, until the basic stuff works better, talking about wellbeing won’t go very far. And the people who most need support will still be stuck fighting fires and wondering if anyone’s listening.
If the industry wants to show it’s serious about mental health, it should start with what advisers have been saying for years. Just make things easier to deal with. Think prevention, not cure.
Donna Hopton is director at Cherry
