Banner Blog

Find out how we’re committed to the health and wellbeing of Our People at Banner

Work is a major part of many peoples lives. It’s where we spend most of our time, it’s how we earn our income and it’s often where we form friendships. Therefore, job satisfaction can play a key role in our mental health and general wellbeing.

At Banner, we understand that wellbeing is a complex blend of the physical, psychological, social and relationship aspects of our employees’ working lives, and we recognise the importance of creating a workplace where everyone can thrive.

That’s why we’re marking World Mental Health Day with a series of activities to show our commitment to the health and wellbeing of our employees.

Samaritan workshops
We're welcoming our local Samaritan group into our workplace on World Mental Health Day to bring their listening and wellbeing expertise to our teams. Our employees will be taught the skills to look after their emotional health and look out for others, before they reach crisis point.

The Wellbeing in the workplace sessions will cover the skills they need to understand the importance of emotional health and have the confidence to reach out to a colleague, friend or family member who might be struggling to cope.

We’ll be recording the sessions and making them available to all employees across the business.

Our line managers are being asked to complete the Samaritans e-learning mental health resources and you can sign-up too by visiting www.samaritans.org/wellbeingintheworkplace.

Tea and talk
We’re encouraging our team members and colleagues to have an informal 5 minute ‘tea and talk’ to ask how they are and to see if there is anything they need support with. We all need to remove the “taboo” of mental health issues and being open to discuss these issues in a supportive manner.

Mental health first aid course
In addition to our team members how have already completed a Mental Health First Aid course,  we’re training a further ten members of our team from across each of our office locations during October and November 2019.  Those who have completed the course will be trained to provide further support to colleagues suffering with mental health issues.  . 

The Retreat
A dedicated room at our office in Normanton, Yorkshire, called 'The Retreat', is available to our employees.  The Retreat is a safe space to talk about mental health, welfare discussions, return to work interviews and for when individuals need immediate support from a Mental Health First Aider. 

What is World Mental Health Day?
The event aims to educate and raise awareness of mental health issues. This year, the theme is psychological first aid and the support people can provide to others in distress, with suicide prevention being the primary focus.

To find out more, visit https://wfmh.global/world-mental-health-day-2019/  

Wellbeing & workplace at Banner
We can only create value by ensuring our colleagues are engaged, healthy and working in a good quality environment with access to appropriate training and development.

Our culture is built on support, respect and tolerance. This helps us to attract and retain people, encourages lower levels of absenteeism, builds higher engagement levels, and ensures better organisational and financial performance.

We're pleased to have a robust Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy in place. This operates across four key pillars, Our People, Our Environment, Our Supply Chain and Our Communities. These help us to deliver social value and impact for our customers, community, suppliers and employees.

To find out more about CSR at Banner, please click here.