Performance reviews, lease negotiations or tenant defaults, tight deal deadlines, planning applications, late-night emails, investor meetings, complex legal documents, the challenges of keeping to budget and development delays are all things that can crop up daily for most real estate professionals. We can thrive off this pressure or sometimes it can cause us to slowly wilt. Work pressure can have a significant impact on our mental health and should not be ignored.
This week, in support of Mental health awareness week, Legal & General has launched its ‘Not a red card Offence’ campaign which uses sporting heroes to raise awareness, educate, and inspire action. We believe colleagues, friends and heroes alike need to be open about mental health. We are working with sports personalities who are also mental health advocates, including Nigel Owens, Kate and Helen Richardson-Walsh and Clarke Carlisle. Our shared objective is to be proactive in changing attitudes and removing the stigma attached to mental health issues by demonstrating that speaking out about mental health is not a ‘red card offence’.
Our research shows that while nearly four in five employers believe their staff would be comfortable discussing mental health issues with them or a company representative, only 4% of those who have experienced depression and 5% who have experienced anxiety agreed. This is a huge disconnect and shows the challenge we face in raising mental health awareness.
Workplace pressures
The real estate industry, like all businesses, will face its workplace pressures. The key is for employers to help employees to be aware of the difficulties or stresses their work could cause, particularly when combined with life events outside of the workplace. If we are able to talk openly and think about the difficulties that our job could create we have started an important dialogue whereby we can begin to ‘normalise’ some people’s fears and anxieties.
In the life of a real estate professional, from week to week it is common to face tight deadlines, long work hours and days away travelling. There is the constant access to email and the need to answer emails as soon as you get up and just before bed to see transactions through. Couple this with nights away from family, travelling to different developments across the country – and it can undoubtedly put huge pressure on home lives. We need to recognise that these things could, in certain situations, cause a strain on someone’s mental wellbeing and, if ignored, result in someone feeling they are not able to cope anymore.
Early intervention is crucial. There is often a belief that no-one at work will understand how you are feeling or care. Perhaps the individual doesn’t themselves fully understand why they are feeling as they are. This is an incredibly isolating and lonely place to be in. It is vital to have inclusive health and wellbeing strategies in place and communicate their availability to all employees. The employer needs to ensure that managers are equipped to adequately support an individual. This can be done through management receiving necessary training to have empathy with their employees and spot signs of unsustainable stress and related mental health issues.
Managers should be encouraged to voice their recognition of the pressures that they and the individual could be under and show understanding. This is important role modelling, because if your boss appears to recognise and relate to some of your anxieties you can feel that you are not alone in your feelings or ‘weak’ because you are struggling to cope.
Line managers can’t be therapists
Line managers cannot be expected to take on the role of therapist. But they can be taught how to look out for signs of mental health issues and start a dialogue, so that the individual can then feel supported and encouraged to seek appropriate help.
To ensure staff have an appropriate level of training and support, the Legal & General platform has successfully launched a mental health first aiders programme. This provides line managers with training, so our staff are better equipped to support fellow employees to identify or respond if they speak out or seek help about a mental health issue.
There is no secret formula to eradicate mental health issues from a business; each individual, whatever job they have, is on their own journey. If we are able to debunk mental health issues and the stigma attached, and empower all employees to feel able to talk about their mental well-being, this is an important start. We might also be able to then prevent an absence becoming long-term or even permanent, with the resultant reduction of productivity and performance of our business, and keeping an individual supported and able to reach his or her full potential. It all begins with some understanding and talking.
■ Katherine Laurenson is head of legal at LGIM Real Assets
