October 10, 2023
World Mental Health Day – and how we focus on wellbeing all year round
As the team at Kingsbridge join others around the globe to mark WorldMental Health Day (Tuesday, October 10th), we have a goodopportunity to reflect upon how best we can support the wellbeing of ourpeople, tenants and others we work with.The aim of World Mental Health Day isto raise awareness of mental health and to drive positive change, as well asencouraging people to talk about mental health, how we look after it, and howimportant it is to get help if you are struggling.
The dedicated day is a way to focus on the challenges many people willface at some point during their lives, and also to think about what we, as abusiness and responsible developer, do to support wellbeing day to day.We knowthat we all perform better when staff are healthy, motivated and focused – andover the past few years we have supported our team with a series of schemes andactivities to promote wellness.
For example, we ensure healthy food options are available to staff,including fruit baskets in our office, vegetarian lunch days and healthybreakfasts.Our team benefit from weekly pilates classes, regular healthcheck-ups, massage appointments and access to the Calm app, which providesexercises to promote meditation, better sleep and reduced anxiety.
We offer all our people a dedicated Employee Assistance Programme tosupport them to succeed, and actively seek out opportunities to provide themwith training, mentorship, industry qualifications, and career progression.Wealso undertake a range of activities as a team, including hiking, canoeing androck climbing. Many of the team are keen cyclists, and some took part earlierthis year in a challenging but fulfilling cycle ride from London to Paris, andback again, to support the charity Duchenne UK, raising over £22,000.Mostrecently the team took part in a fascinating session to learn the Wim HofMethod, which supports participants to be “Happy, Healthy and Strong’ throughmindfulness and breathing exercises. The team are pictured, above, during thesession.
The day held at Blessed Studios, Sidlesham and organised by Root2Rise,included cold exposure through the use of ice baths – an exercise that waschallenging and fun, but also encouraged the team to think more deeply abouthow to optimise the body and mind for health to influence our stress responseand resilience.
Our wellbeing philosophy influences all of our work, including the waywe create workspaces with mental health and productivity in mind, for exampleproviding facilities such as cycle parking and showers to encourage physicalactivity.
In all our developments we are mindful of the world around us, creatingschemes as sustainably as possible and improving the local environment tosupport the wellbeing of communities wherever we can.You can find out moreabout our work to prioritise health and wellbeing in our Impact andSustainability Policy, which can be found here.
