Supporting employees' mental health and wellbeing

It is important to provide a combination of formal and informal support for employees. Make sure that this support is also available to those who are working remotely.

We conducted a thematic review into workplace culture and asked firms to share what they did to promote a positive workplace culture. Many firms highlighted initiatives such as group wellbeing calls and manager check-ins, mental health first aiders and access to counselling services through work. Other firms we spoke to used pulse surveys to score levels of happiness, track trends and identify risks to wellbeing.

It is helpful to have firm-wide training available for managers on how to have supportive conversations in the workplace around mental health. Managers should be empowered through training to spot the signs of mental ill-health and provide effective one-to-one support for their direct reports.

To help employees understand your approach to health and wellbeing, develop a clear wellbeing strategy with defined objectives and actions. Include your core values, expected standards of behaviour and guidance on how employees can seek help. Involve employees in its design and keep it open to feedback.

LawCare's Life in the Law research recommends that firms evaluate their existing mental health and wellbeing programmes to ensure that they are working. Over half (54.9%) of respondents shared that they did not find their firm's mental health and wellbeing initiatives helpful. Set up a staff wellbeing group and involve them in encouraging colleagues to adopt your wellbeing provisions and provide feedback on how effective they are.

There are things that smaller firms can do to look after staff wellbeing, in our thematic review into workplace culture, a small employment law firm told us it conducts mental health risk assessments twice a year. This aims to monitor and manage stress. It also used an app to capture information and produce a report on a quarterly basis about how people are feeling.

Checklist

Use this checklist to help introduce wellbeing measures and monitor their impact:

• develop a clear wellbeing strategy
• involve employees in shaping your approach and seek ongoing feedback
• provide a mix of formal and informal wellbeing support
• train managers to have supportive conversations and spot signs of mental ill-health
• regularly review and evaluate whether your wellbeing initiatives are working.

Practical examples

Freshfields - Introducing mental health first aiders

In 2017, Freshfields began a pilot to train 16 mental health first aiders. They are especially trained to spot signs of mental distress so they can respond and provide appropriate support. Since then, the firm has expanded its target with the aim of training one in 25 employees worldwide. It has since exceeded this target and has trained more than 300 people worldwide. The firm reports that the training has been extremely well received, increasing awareness around mental health. The training has reduced stigma, as well as building valuable skills that have helped its people in the workplace. This has extended to family, friends and the broader community.

Ellis Jones Solicitors – Raising awareness of mental health

Ellis Jones Solicitors recognises that the legal profession can be extremely pressured, including when dealing with clients at very stressful times in their lives. It is therefore committed to raising awareness about mental health and supporting its employees. For example, by promoting World Mental Health Day and inviting employees to share experiences through the monthly employee newsletter. It has also highlighted the help available to employees, including from LawCare, and displayed mental health and wellbeing information around its offices. Processes have been put in place to monitor sickness absence and support employees on their return to work. Managers and employees have also been trained on mental health and wellbeing.

Workplace culture is shaped by the behaviours, attitudes, and values of its members. A positive culture can support good mental health and wellbeing. It is established by the behaviours, attitudes, and values of leaders and employees.

As one firm said in our workplace culture thematic review, focusing on wellbeing creates a ‘virtuous circle' attracting and retaining the best employees. These employees are then more productive, motivated, and engaged to work as a team, which in turn benefits clients and their business.

Employees should feel safe to speak out if they are struggling. There can be a stigma around mental ill-health and as we found in our thematic review, not everyone is comfortable admitting that they are feeling stressed. People fear they will be perceived as weak or not ‘cut out' for the legal sector.

Psychological safety at work means employees feel confident in taking appropriate risks, are comfortable expressing ideas and asking questions, and admitting mistakes. This can be achieved by fostering a culture of trust, open communication and developing positive relationships between colleagues and their managers. It is generally considered to be a good indicator of positive workplace culture.

The Life in the Law report highlights that those experiencing poor mental health and wellbeing experience lower levels of psychological safety. The report recommends providing a psychologically safe environment that allows employees to feel comfortable speaking openly about concerns and mistakes. Examples of best practice we found in our thematic review included working together with employees to resolve issues and senior leaders sharing stories of their own mistakes.

Senior leaders can have a big impact on making staff feel safe to speak up and ask for help. In our thematic review we found that senior leaders who shared their stories, sent a powerful message that no-one is immune to mental ill-health. It's important to remember however, that senior leaders may need support too.

Having an open dialogue is one of the three pillars of the Mindful Business Charter which involves employers making a commitment “to build an environment where people feel safe to communicate openly, share feedback, ask for help, and admit mistakes”. Signing up to the Charter is a good way to show you are serious about promoting mental health and wellbeing.

Checklist

Use this checklist to help create a supportive culture and challenge stigma:

• promote a supportive culture which encourages psychological safety
• make it easier for employees to speak openly about stress and mental ill-health
• challenge stigma by encouraging an open dialogue with senior leaders sharing their experiences where appropriate.

Practical examples

Shoosmiths – Resources, training and external commitments

Shoosmiths fosters an inclusive culture where colleagues feel valued and able to perform to the best of their abilities. Its aim is to create a workplace free from mental health stigma, and to do this, it signed the Time to Change Pledge. It also set up a national network of mental health and wellbeing champions tasked with raising awareness and endorsing positive mental health. To improve line manager support, a mental health and wellbeing policy and line manager guidance tools were introduced. The firm also worked with occupational psychologists to understand the level of emotional engagement, wellbeing and resilience by employees. And to enable employees to support themselves, they developed dedicated mental health intranet pages with information and resources and launched a mindfulness course.

Kuits Solicitors – Time to Change Pledge

Kuits has an inclusive approach and supports a culture where people feel they can be open and be the best they can be. In 2019, the firm was named Regional Employer of the Year across all sectors by the British Chambers of Commerce. It was also shortlisted for a national corporate culture award. The firm also signed up to the employer Time to Change Pledge and set out several actions. This included how it would achieve and show senior level buy-in. When launching this, team members were invited to witness the management team publicly sign a pledge board. This showcases their aims to promote mental wellness within the business. It contributes to a supportive and safe environment which can reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues.

A positive workplace culture needs to be supported by a healthy work-life balance.

Employees will feel more comfortable taking breaks if senior leaders role model healthy working patterns. Junior employees are more likely to feel they have to work on holiday or at weekends if they receive emails from senior colleagues out of hours. A workplace culture that rewards employees who do not take regular breaks or their entitled annual leave, creates a negative feedback loop. This can lead to burnout.

The pressure to work outside working hours can also come from clients. In our workplace culture thematic review, most respondents said they were expected to respond to clients outside office hours. To manage client demands, senior employees should intervene and set out joint expectations with the client around working hours, so the burden does not fall on junior employees who don't feel they can say no.

The Mindful Business Charter is a useful resource for firms to create a healthy and sustainable workplace. One of its core pillars is about healthy boundaries, encouraging the commitment “to embrace the opportunities for flexible working – and avoid creating a culture of overwork presenteeism or constant availability”. Firms of all sizes can take small but meaningful actions to achieve this, respecting rest periods and avoiding over-use of emails.

LawCare highlighted the negative impact that billable hours can have on employees' mental health. Our thematic review found that billable hours is an aspect of workplace culture that respondents most wanted to change. We provide examples of good practice in the review, including other ways to reward and recognise contributions and achievements within the firm.

Checklist

Use this checklist to help encourage a healthy work-life balance:

• encourage senior leaders to role model healthy working patterns
• avoid creating expectations around working out of hours and manage clients' expectations
• review the impact of billable hours and consider rewarding non-chargeable contributions to the firm.

It is important to recognise the 'vicarious trauma' that legal professionals can experience when working with challenging, vulnerable, or traumatised clients. Listening to the traumatic experiences of clients in significant detail can have a significant impact on mental health and wellbeing.

LawCare provides information about vicarious trauma, highlighting the symptoms which people can experience, including sleep disturbance, finding it hard to concentrate and burnout which affects your ability to cope. It offers help and guidance on their website with tips for individuals and resources which firms can use to support their staff.

The Law Society published a feature article on the experiences of three lawyers in managing the unseen burdens of vicarious trauma in legal practice. It provides a list of steps law firms can take to recognise vicarious trauma, including having a policy and training to support staff who have been exposed to trauma.

Checklist

Use this checklist to recognise and support staff who experience vicarious trauma:

• recognise the impact that dealing with traumatised clients can have on your staff
• put in place a policy and training to support your staff.

We recognise that the regulatory process can be a stressful and anxious time for those who we are investigating. This includes those who are particularly vulnerable because of poor physical or mental health. Sometimes the regulatory process itself can trigger health issues or make them worse.

We receive complaints from members of the public or clients of those we regulate as well as reports of misconduct from the courts, other regulators as well as from the profession itself. We do not act on all complaints and reports. We focus on misconduct most likely to harm the public interest, ensuring that any decision to investigate is proportionate. We provide more information about how we make the decision to investigate in our guidance Making decisions to investigate concerns.

It can be helpful to understand more about how we work and what you can expect if you are investigated. Read more in our guidance If we are investigating you, where we have set questions and answers, to help explain our approach and what the outcome might be.

If the person we are investigating has health issues, we have guidance which explains our approach. This could involve making reasonable adjustments to help you through the process and we will consider requests for further time or postponements where appropriate.

We provide a range of resources, including contact details for organisations which may be able to help on our website here: Your health, your career. This also covers how we might be able to help if you have worries about your practice, including our Professional Ethics helpline which can answer your questions and offer guidance.

Read our other resources to support with encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace:

• Workplace culture thematic review
• The Law Society Wellbeing Hub
• The Law Society Learning and Development – Wellbeing, mental health and resilience
• ACAS Guidance – Reasonable adjustments for mental health
• Mind: Mental health in the legal profession
• Law Care Life in the Law 2025 report
• The Mindful Business Charter
• Time to Change Pledge