Tackling Mental Health in Professional Services

There is no doubt that there are significant pressures placed on those who work within professional services organisations from time to time. It is also apparent from reports that those working in professional services report higher than average levels of anxiety, depression, fatigue and even, very unfortunately, suicidal ideation than the general population (and in many cases also higher than other professions).

Looking at the legal profession only:   

• A global survey by the international Bar Association published in 2021 found that:

• 35% of respondents reported that their work had a negative impact on their mental health 
• over half of respondents reported feeling fatigue, disrupted sleep, and anxiety
• 44% felt “emotional upset” and 41% reported having depressed thoughts

• A national study by the Canadian Bar Association, Federation of Law Societies of Canada, and University of Sherbrooke found that 24.1% of legal professionals in Canada had experienced suicidal thoughts since beginning their practice, compared to the national average of 11.8%.

• In a UK based survey carried out by LawCare in 2020/2021:

• 69% of respondents reported having suffered mental ill-health in the previous 12 months
• 60.7% of respondents said they had experienced anxiety either often, very often, or all of the time, over the last 12 months
• 48.4% had experienced low mood and 28.9% had experienced depression

Lawyers are not the only professionals impacted. A recent study by chartered accountants’ wellbeing charity caba revealed that 55% of accountants admitted to suffering from stress and burnout, with the most common reasons being reported as heavy workload, long hours and complex work with little room for error. 

How are professional services firms tackling this? 

Across the sector, employers have rolled out various initiatives, ranging from putting in place confidential help lines and instating mental health first aiders, offering access to counselling and therapy, introducing wellbeing programmes in the workplace, and also launching campaigns to encourage more open conversations in the workplace about mental health challenges. 

The criticisms to date (whether unfair or fair) of many of these are that they are “reactive” rather than “proactive” and don’t tackle the root causes of stress, anxiety, depression, fatigue felt by employees. In some cases, these resources are under-utilised, perhaps because those who need them do not believe they have the time or bandwidth to engage with them. 

Despite these issues, these or similar initiatives are part of seeking to foster a healthy workplace in our view.  But on their own, are they enough?  Should firms adopt a more holistic approach to seek to manage mental health issues?  That may include:

1. Understanding your people 

Taking lawyers as an example - they tend, by nature, to show more traits than the average population of being perfectionist and high achieving. Research indicates they have higher than average levels of scepticism, autonomy, abstract reasoning and sense of urgency. These are factors which may well be critical to being a success as a lawyer (or certainly help) - but are these factors also linked to anxiety, exhaustion, loneliness, and depression due to pressure individuals place on themselves?  By considering what may drive, and impact, a population, firms are better able to put in place programmes to support their people, and also consider how they can seek to ensure that their people engage with and use those programmes.

2.  Understanding what keeps your staff up at night

Several firms carry out culture or wellbeing surveys to identify trends in relation to staff satisfaction and dissatisfaction, how supported they feel, how comfortable they are speaking to their “manager”, and generally how happy they are in the workplace. But do they identify anyone struggling with mental health issues?  Are questions such as, “I often worry about the work I have done outside of office hours” or “I regularly (on a monthly / weekly / daily) basis have interrupted sleep due to thinking about work” included, or otherwise reviewed, with individuals? These kinds of questions may well form part of the management of day to day interactions – but has a firm made sure that questions such as these do not fall “between the cracks” with managers believing they may be picked up elsewhere? And indeed, are structured management conversations happening with colleagues?

3. Recognising things about the profession which may cause pressure and/or stress

a. The regulator(s): There are a number of stressors that are specific to regulated sectors, deriving from: title-related accountability and the potential pressures that individuals may feel in relation to compliance with professional duties; the potential for error and the severity that may result in terms of causing harm to a client; updating one’s knowledge to practice; a potential sense of isolation due to the confidential nature of the work being done; and the potential for investigations and sanctions – including as a result of any complaints, whether meritorious or not. 

b. Client demands and needs: The work is often pressurised. Whilst firms can and should structure deadlines and timeframes based on workload, sometimes the nature of the work, project, or litigation, necessitates tight timeframes which can lead to stressful situations.   

4. Walking the walk: Tackling the factors inherent in professional services work

Once firms understand their workforce and who they are, the impact that the work has on their staff and the stressors at play, they should turn their minds to how they can tangibly manage those stressors. 

That could involve, by way of example:

i. Reviewing critically wellbeing programmes and other benefits – what are the levels of uptake? Is uptake amongst certain groups lagging? If so, why and what are the barriers to uptake?  And finally, what will you do to remove those barriers? 

ii. What do you have in place to mitigate the impact of stressors? Are you fostering an environment where staff are actively encouraged to share – and do in fact share – their experiences and concerns with one another, whether those are experiences of having made mistakes, having to resolve an issue with a client, or dealing with complaints?  Do juniors have someone to talk to when working on highly confidential matters? Do senior partners have an outlet to talk through complex issues?  What is your management structure and how are you working to prevent any risk of people feeling isolated?

iii. How are you mitigating the difficulties that arise from competing client needs? Client needs and requirements, and helping clients manage and deal with those needs, are an inherent and necessary part of professional services.  But professional services firms should consider how they help their staff deal with these: Are teams adequately resourced? How are management safe-guarding and reviewing staff? If you have a generous holiday entitlement, how are you actually making sure that staff take it and take it properly? When it comes to partners, are firms tracking the amount of leave taken by partners and how much ‘off’ time partners have, where they do not check emails or respond to clients? If they are not switching off, what are the reasons for this?  What can firms do to help them them switch off?  Is a financial services route of enforced breaks sensible?

Comment

It is not enough to talk about work-life balance, wellbeing programmes and raising awareness of mental health at work. In our view this is not a tick box exercise of looking at what the holiday entitlement is, what programmes are in place, and what intranets include.

Firms can obtain a real advantage by taking a truly holistic approach, understanding their people and the pressures which are inherent, and working out how their programmes are actually being used to assist their people.  A central part of this is the role of day-to-day management and how that takes place.