Polypipe Building Services staff ‘Wear It Blue’ for West Kent Mind
Monday 6th June 2022
Polypipe Building Services Aylesford headquarters was a sea of blue this week in support of Mental Health Awareness Week and West Kent Mind.
Teams from the warehouse, factory floor and office all got involved in the event to raise cash for the local mental health charity through activities including cake bake sales, planting blue flowers around the site, wearing blue outfits, and taking part in mental health walks around the nearby local lake.
Mental health is a critical issue at Polypipe Building Services because as a specialist above ground drainage manufacturer they operate within the construction sector, where research shows a tragically high numbers of workers feel overwhelmed and experience suicidal thoughts.
Natalie Butler, Learning and Development Business Partner at Polypipe Building Services trained as a Mental Health First Aider and is one of 16 MHFAs present in all areas of the business who have been trained in partnership with West Kent Mind.
Natalie said: ““We now have an almost 50/50 split of men and women trained as MHFAs, and post pandemic I know I’ve found myself feeling anxious and I’ve approached our MHFAs for help.
“Polypipe Building Services is aiming to ensure one hundred per cent of our leaders have undertaken Mental Health Awareness training by the end of 2022.
“This forms part of how we are building a wider culture around equality, diversity and inclusion, talent and development, reward, and recognition, as well as looking at more flexible working patterns, with some shift patterns already working four days or hybrid working.
“Supporting our team’s mental health isn’t a tick box exercise, and we’ve alongside investment in wellbeing training and tools which all employees can access, we’re also creating a cultural change within the business where people support each other and give each other the confidence to do their best work because we genuinely want Polypipe Building Services to be a place people want to work and want to stay.”
Mental Health Awareness Week 2022 takes place from May 9th, and is an annual event hosted by the Mental Health Foundation which has become one of the biggest awareness weeks across the UK.