IPA president Josh Krichefski has launched two initiatives for advertising leaders to increase and demonstrate their commitment to employees’ mental health and wellbeing.
First, the People First Promise requires participating businesses to show ways they support their people’s mental health and wellbeing. The Adland Wellbeing Lab is a free online portal with dedicated resource for individuals and companies.
The People First Promise tracks mental health policies across three categories: empower, support and prevent. Each aims to help individuals in the workplace find resilience and track their mental health, find ways for businesses to help their people in those areas and, finally, ensure senior leader accountability through processes to check action plans are put in place and monitored.
Once this evidence has been assessed, a company can earn a “badge of honour” to show they display a duty of care to employees — and this, in turn, could help attract future talent.
For companies needing support to gain this accreditation, the IPA has also launched an online portal, Adland Wellbeing Lab, which contains curated resources, advice and training to support employee mental health and wellbeing.
Individuals are able to download their own wellbeing plan and complete training to become a free wellbeing champion through Unmind, while organisations can get help to deliver mental health strategies through Self Space.
Mental health must not be ‘add-on’
Krichefski, who is EMEA and UK CEO at WPP’s GroupM, said: “If our people and our businesses are to thrive, it’s time to put their health and wellbeing at the forefront of everything we do and prove we mean what we say.
“I am a firm believer that it is much easier to put in place guard-rails to help prevent poor mental health and wellbeing than it is to treat it. As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. But this takes commitment — demonstrable commitment — and investment from the top down.
“It is one thing to launch a policy or initiative — and that’s a great start — but what’s crucial is to embed it into the culture and everyday workings of your organisation. We must integrate mental health and wellbeing, and not view it as an add-on. This is why it is vital that agency leaders commit to and evidence their activity in this area and, in doing so, can earn the IPA People First Promise badge of honour.
“By supporting and empowering our people, and working to prevent harms, I truly believe our people and our businesses will thrive now and in the future.”
