Mental health in the workplace has become increasingly important over the last few years, but awareness of the issue has skyrocketed since the Covid-19 pandemic. A combination of obligatory remote working, social isolation, quarantine, bereavement, and pending recession have had unprecedented mental health consequences for a great number of people. How to nurture a workforce and to provide colleagues with mental health support is a key consideration for many companies.
At Titan Asset Management Ltd (Titan), we are proud to say we consider the mental health of our colleagues as a priority and recognise that those companies that go the extra mile to keep their employees mentally healthy should be rewarded. Successful companies safeguard colleague mental health because in doing so they also safeguard their economic success.
This is why Titan Asset Management have become a signatory to the Global Investor Statement on Workplace Mental Health. Being a signatory means Titan is committed to supporting CCLA and other signatories in their engagement with firms to improve their approach to mental health in the workplace. It’s about optimising an organisation’s performance by eliminating avoidable costs associated with mental ill-health and taking concerted efforts to create the working conditions under which every individual can thrive.
Following three years of research, data gathering, focused engagement and consultation, CCLA has created a new tool, which is designed to shine a spotlight on corporate mental health practices for the first time. The CCLA Corporate Mental Health Benchmark assesses and ranks c.200 of the world’s largest listed companies on their mental health disclosures. Early examples of the progress made can be found here.
To support the project, CCLA has spent the past 12 months building a global investor coalition on workplace mental health. This coalition now spans eight countries, across four continents, and represents a combined US$9 trillion in assets under management. It is with the help of this coalition that they are now beginning to make real headway.
James Peel, Portfolio Manager at Titan said: “We are proud to join this investor coalition. CCLA have done excellent work to shine a light on the importance of workplace mental health, the improvement of which is of benefit to both employees and their employers. We look forward to collaborating with other signatories to this initiative in the future.”
Amy Browne, Stewardship Lead at CCLA, said: “CCLA has been thrilled by the response from some of the world’s largest companies to our mental health initiative. Countless businesses have used our recommendations to strengthen their own approaches, while others have used our insights to initiate and escalate internal conversations on mental health to the highest level. None of this would be possible without the support of the global investor coalition workplace on mental health, which now represents a combined $9 trillion in assets under management. CCLA is absolutely delighted to welcome Titan Asset Management to the growing list of signatories”
