Diversity and Inclusion Annual Review 2023
Our progress this year
Diversity and inclusion
Mental health and wellbeing
Freshfields is driving an open, non-judgemental and inclusive conversation about mental health and wellbeing at all levels of the firm across the globe.
At Freshfields, we prioritise creating a culture that fosters open and mindful communication, as well as supporting healthy practices. We want to enable our people to focus on the important things at the right time.
Our approach to wellbeing is holistic – that means we look at all aspects of life. Our wellbeing pillars, which underpins our wellbeing programmes, are ‘mind, body, balance’ and are intrinsically linked.
In partnership with Mental Health First Aid England, we have created a fully trained Global Mental Health Support team, equipped with the skills to recognise, support and provide guidance to those who may be experiencing mental health issues.
We have achieved our pledge to have at least one-in-25 of our people trained in mental health first aid skills, and we continue to monitor numbers to ensure we are meeting our commitment.
However, this pledge goes far beyond the numbers. We are targeting specific populations where we have less people trained, and run refresher sessions for those already in the support team. We proactively encourage engagement with ‘mental health first-aiders’ or ‘mental health mentors’ in tandem with a number of other wellbeing programmes and events that run across the firm.
We promote a number of key awareness days globally including World Mental Health Day, World Menopause Day, World Cancer Day, among others.We also support the green ribbon campaign and ‘Time to Talk’ day in the UK.
Our Freshfields Mental Health Affinity Network, the first chapter of which is in the UK, supports our work in this area and aims to raise awareness, normalise conversations around mental health and support its members and colleagues by promoting good mental health and ways to maintain it.
We are also signatories of the Mindful Business Charter, a collaboration between banks and leading law firms committed to driving change and promoting better mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.
