Green Light To Talk about Mental Health @ PwC

Setting the scene

As a way of encouraging our people to speak up about mental health in the workplace, our Green Light To Talk campaign was launched during Mental Health Awareness Week in May 2016 and has gone from strength to strength over the past few years. The initiative includes a ‘green ribbon’ campaign, where our people can wear ribbons as a sign to show others they are happy to have a conversation about mental health and wellbeing.

We publish monthly internal stories, where our people tell their personal experiences through iPhone videos filmed themselves. This storytelling is central to our approach to breaking down the stigma around mental illness, normalising the conversation, and signposting the tools and resources available to our people who may be struggling, or who want to help others.

How we helped

In 2018, we joined forces with the Samaritans and The Lord Mayor’s Appeal to create two interactive online learning tools to help train our people, and people from other businesses across the country, to recognise the signs of mental health issues and to give practical advice on how to listen and recognise that someone may be struggling. PwC was the first business to trial the tools, which include specific examples of how to approach difficult conversations and make them beneficial. We also want to embed mental health awareness and Mental Health First Aid training across our firm, and are training our own accredited Mental Health First Aid Instructors, so we have the capability to do this on an ongoing basis.

We also became involved with the This Is Me initiative when it launched, and contributed a video showcasing five of our people as they talk openly about their personal mental health experiences. This year we produced a new version of the video, reflecting our strategic focus on the sometimes ‘harder to reach’ groups within our firm. This video explores how mental health challenges play out in different faiths, cultures and communities and was produced by members of our five faith networks.

To mark our annual ‘Green Light To Talk Day’ during Mental Health Awareness Week in May 2018, our Chairman and Senior Partner Kevin Ellis hosted an internal webcast for our people to drive the conversation on how important it is for mental health to be discussed in the workplace at PwC.

We have a number of ‘mental health advocates’ at senior levels across the business. They are partners who either have personal experience of, or an interest in, mental health, who will listen without judgement to anyone in the business who wants to talk. They are trained by the Samaritans to signpost and help those who may be struggling.