Jacobs recognized for commitment to workplace wellbeing

Dallas — Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has been recognized with the gold award in Mind’s second annual Workplace Wellbeing Index, a benchmark of best policy and practice around mental health in the workplace. Achieving gold recognizes Jacobs’ success in embedding mental health into company practices and policies, using a variety of best practice approaches, and demonstrating a long-term, in-depth commitment to employee mental health.

Inspired by its BeyondZero principles, Jacobs worked with Mind to develop the “mental health matters” strategy focused on promoting positive mental health and wellbeing across the business, staff and their families. The strategy delivers focused training, tools and techniques to enable a support network of volunteer employee champions that offer early intervention and interim support for staff while directing employees to the appropriate professional options.

Commenting on the award, Jacobs Chairman and CEO Steve Demetriou remarked, “To say I am proud of Jacobs’ commitment to positive mental health is an understatement. Together we are creating a culture where we encourage people to talk about mental health, provide support to one another and demonstrate that, at times, we can all benefit from taking advantage of the programs we have and the people we’ve trained.”

“Positive mental health promotes wellbeing, enthusiasm, stress resilience and retention, resulting in valued and supported staff that are far more likely to achieve their potential,” said Jacobs Senior Vice President and Global Head of Safety, Security and Sustainability Catriona Schmolke. “Fundamental to the success of our ‘mental health matters’ strategy is our network of positive mental health champions, which amasses more than 400 trainers and champions globally, and our ambition to have a network of 1,000+ champions across the globe by the end of 2018.”

Mind’s Workplace Wellbeing Index celebrates the good work employers are doing to promote and support positive mental health, and provides key recommendations on the specific areas where there is room to improve. Mind surveyed nearly 45,000 employees across the 74 employers participating in the index, and found that 13 percent of respondents said that their mental health was currently poor or very poor. Of those, 82 percent said that this was solely or partially work-related.

“Employers are increasingly acknowledging the importance of tackling stress and supporting the mental wellbeing of the entire workforce, including employees that might be struggling with their mental health,” added Mind’s Head of Workplace Wellbeing Emma Mamo. “We’re delighted to recognize and celebrate employers, like Jacobs, making mental health a priority for their organization through our Workplace Wellbeing Index.

“The Awards event provided an opportunity to recognize those forward-thinking employers who are at the cutting edge when it comes to investing in their staff wellbeing, and in turn getting the best outcomes for their business.”