Assurety commits to Mindful Business Charter to foster better working practices for mental health and wellbeing.
Assurety has signed the Mindful Business Charter, joining a wide range of businesses and professional service firms around the world in a collective commitment to address the avoidable stresses in our working practices, to promote healthier and more effective ways of working. The Charter, originally launched by Barclays and law firms Pinsent Masons and Addleshaw Goddard in October 2018, brings organisations and their service providers together to reach a shared agenda for mental health and wellbeing.
At an event marking World Mental Health Day, Assurety will pledge its commitment to abide by a set of principles centred on openness and respect for each other, improved communication, respect for working hours and considerate delegation of tasks.
The Mindful Business Charter provides organisations and individuals with the framework, permission and challenge to dare to be different and to work together across the business community to rehumanise the workplace. Its focus on creating an open and respectful culture and dialogue seeks to ensure that whatever the broader context in which we are being required to work, how we work and how we interact with each other should be thoughtful, mindful, and shaped as far as possible to eliminate unnecessary stress so that we can work both more effectively and more healthily – so that we can all thrive.
Mary Peterson, chair of the trustees and Head of Responsible Business and Charity Chair at Addleshaw Goddard LLP, one of the founders of MBC, said:
“It is five years since a small group of people from three organisations sat down together to grapple with how we could address the workplace causes of poor mental health. Over that period, how, when and where we work, and to an extent the very notion of what we mean by work, has continued to evolve. MBC provides a flexible, permissive framework and a common language to enable employers and their people to navigate that change. The challenge to employers remains to ensure that this continuing change is mindful and intentional, that we ensure that all of our people are able to thrive and to work in ways that are both healthy and efficient. MBC continues to evolve to support our members, and the wider business community, to meet that challenge. Our growing membership, increasingly international in nature, is testament both to the nature of the challenge and the willingness of employers to meet it. We are delighted to be welcoming Assurety to our community.”
Richard Martin, CEO of The Mindful Business Charter, said:
“I am thrilled to be formally welcoming Assurety to The Mindful Business Charter.
MBC has always been ambitious. When I first sat down with the founders in 2018 to discuss our aims, one was that we would no longer be needed in five years’ time. Sadly we haven’t managed that yet but we continue to make progress. At its heart MBC is a community of employers coming together to share ideas, learning and challenges, knowing that together we will make so much more of a difference than if we were working alone. Along with our other new members Assurety have already shown that we will learn from them as much as they will learn from us. The collective commitment from all our members provides the energy and encouragement for our work. We continue to enhance the support we provide to members, whether through collaboration with trusted partners, such as digital wellbeing experts Shine Offline, and the Behavioural Change experts at University College London, one to one work with individual members, a growing series of Insight events, the creation of resources to support members or initiatives to tackle unhealthy practices across particular sectors. At the same time we are developing ever more relationships and support in different parts of the world. Change takes time but by making small and deliberate steps on a consistent basis we can achieve great change.”
The MBC has the support of mental health charity Mind, the City Mental Health Alliance, the International Bar Association, the Law Societies of England and Wales and of Scotland and Singapore, LawCare, the Solicitors Regulatory Authority and the Lord Mayor of London’s Appeal.
Further information on the Mindful Business Charter can be found at www.mindfulbusinesscharter.com or contact
