Mental health awareness has changed the culture at CGI UK

By working with Mental Health First Aid England, CGI UK has encouraged openness, reduced sick time taken and saved thousands of pounds

Protecting employees' mental health and wellbeing is critical to ensuring that they are happy and healthy, both at and outside of work. These issues are easily ignored at first, but companies are increasingly finding that promoting mental health - with more than just the occasional yoga session - leads to fewer sick days taken, more productive staff and an overall better atmosphere in the workplace.

Business and IT service provider CGI has 77,000 employees worldwide - more than 5,000 in the UK - and works across sectors including government, utilities, oil and gas, transportation, finance and healthcare. The firm supports its employees' mental health with an initiative called Oxygen: a wellbeing programme that it has run across globally for the last decade.

Since 2015, a network of over 200 Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAiders) has become a key component of the UK programme, which in 2018 received a CIPD Award for excellence in health and wellbeing initiatives.

Prevention is better than cure

As with most organisations in the tech sector (and beyond), CGI has found that stress, anxiety and depression account for the largest percentage of sickness absence, highlighting a need to ensure the right support is in place.

"The CGI environment can be demanding," explains Anne Bartlett, CGI Health and Wellbeing Lead. "The need to support clients across the country can sometimes require our people to work long hours, move between assignments and spend time living away from home."

Supported by HR, senior management and the president of CGI UK, the Oxygen programme provides a large range of global and local events and services to support employees' physical and mental health.

At the heart of the mental health and wellbeing element of the programme are CGI's 200 MHFAiders. Staff at any level, including senior managers and the organisation's HR team, are offered the training on a voluntary basis.

"We promote the course as part of our broader learning and development programme as linked to our wellbeing strategy," says Bartlett. "Since we introduced Mental Health First Aid England training to Oxygen, interest has significantly increased through our internal communications, blogs sharing employees' personal stories, and word of mouth."

MHFAiders have helped to significantly raise awareness and provide CGI staff with a clear path to further support available as part of Oxygen. "Our MHFAiders offer information and support at team meetings, internal events and information stands during campaigns such as Mental Health Awareness Week," says Bartlett.

Prevention is at the heart of CGI's strategy; both in identifying when someone is struggling early on through its MHFAider network, and in giving staff to the tools to stay mentally healthy.

Alongside MHFA England training, CGI offers resilience workshops, which help members identify signs of stress in their teams and develop their own coping strategies. It provides mindfulness and meditation classes, webinars on a variety of wellbeing topics and an open blog for members to share their personal experiences of stress and mental ill health.

The MHFAiders also promote the CGI Member Assistance Programme (MAP), which has seen a significant increase in uptake in every quarter since 2015, ensuring pathways to further support are clear.

"Mental Health First Aid has been an integral part of our wellbeing agenda. We have a strong focus on supporting employees who are experiencing difficulties with their mental health and the network of Mental Health First Aiders has been instrumental in helping us address such issues at an early stage," says Tara McGeehan, president of CGI UK.

Results

"CGI's overall investment in the wellbeing agenda has resulted in a reduction in medium and long-term sickness absence relating to mental ill-health, which has led to savings of over £65,000 per year in health insurance premiums,"," says Bartlett. "We know that management see their Mental Health First Aiders as critical to supporting the business to be successful for our people and for our clients."

Most significant, however, are the people benefits. "Since the Health and Wellbeing programme was launched five years ago there has been a massive culture change," remarks Mental Health First Aid England instructor Keith Smith.

"There is far more openness about mental health issues, with more members prepared to come forward to share with their colleagues if they are experiencing issues. One person who had struggled with alcoholism had never told anyone, but came forward to offer a blog because he felt the time was now right."

CGI monitors the types of interventions every MHFAider is involved in on an anonymous basis, allowing the company to track the effectiveness of the programme and provide a platform of mutual support for the MHFAiders themselves.

Blue skies ahead

The appetite for MHFA England training continues to grow in the business. "We have around 80 people on the waiting list to attend the MHFA England course which has an excellent reputation around the business. People see it as an important life skill," says Smith. "We are now in the process of rolling out half-day MHFA training to the management population at large, so they can better support members in their teams who might be experiencing difficulties"

Investing in mental health and wellbeing and taking a ‘whole organisation' approach is helping to establish CGI as a leader in the sector.

But Bartlett and her team know there is more work to be done: "This is a male-dominated and high-pressure environment, where traditionally mental health hasn't been a topic of discussion" she says.

"As we look ahead, we'll be building on the momentum we have generated in these last few years and continuing to offer MHFA England training across the organisation."