By April 2020, Stonegate will have a Mental Health Champion in each site that it operates

Launching today [Thursday 14 November], Stonegate Pub Company has partnered with the Licensed Trade Charity to provide mental health training for over 1,000 team members.

Between now and April 2020, all of Stonegate’s general managers and line managers of pub support teams will participate in this face-to-face training workshop, to become mental health champions. The training focuses on educating and is designed to give team members the confidence to have those difficult conversations with team members that may be suffering from mental health issues.

Recent studies have highlighted both the individual cost of poor mental health, but also the cost to businesses. Stonegate has identified that there is a significant cost directly attributed to sick days taken as result of mental health issues, which combined with a philosophy deeply ingrained in the well-being of its staff, has fuelled the programme.

Suzanne Haydon, Head of HR, said: “Our people are at the heart of everything we do, and their physical and mental well-being is of the upmost importance. We strive to enable our employees to be the best they can be through our award-winning, forward-looking, ‘Bar to Boardroom’ career develop programme, Albert’s Theory of Progression. This equips them with the skills and behaviours they need to progress, however, as the largest operator of late-night venues in the UK, we also recognise that their health and well-being is equally important in their career progression.

“The statistics that were reported on World Mental Health Day, where 84% of hospitality workers reported an increase in stress as a direct result of their job, were alarming and we take this responsibility in looking after our teams very seriously.

“Within the last two years our employee base has grown by 13%, from 13,200 to 15,000, as we continue to acquire a mixture of pubs and bars, including late night businesses. We are not trying to turn our teams into counsellors, but this programme is designed to give our people the skills and confidence they need to identify someone who is struggling and guide them towards specialist help and support services.”