For the past year, we have been championing driving positive cultural change around mental health, and for World Mental Health Day we would like to share with you the progress we have made in the past 12 months.

To make a real, tangible difference, inclusion in all senses of the word must be at the forefront of everything we do. Our colleagues must be empowered to be their authentic selves, with absolutely no fear of discrimination or judgement.

As you will be aware, one of our Charities of The Year is Mind, who provide support and advice for those struggling with mental health. They also campaign for important legislative changes within Government. Mind has reported that one in four adults and, one in 10 children will experience some kind of mental health illness. This truly highlights why the work we do to support Mind is so important.

Building on our commitment to supporting those with mental health challenges, several members of the UK & Ireland Board also took part in a mental health course. It gave an in-depth understanding of mental health, the factors that affect it, and it also explored practical interpersonal skills, including non-judgemental listening.

We have now gone one step further by committing to training 100% of our managers on mental health. By doing so, we hope to create a culture of understanding, acceptance and complete inclusivity at all levels of our business.

In addition to these fantastic achievements, for the past year, we have been working on our new diversity and inclusion (D&I) platform, CHROMA, which will be pivotal in driving forwards our D&I agenda. CHROMA has now launched, which is a huge achievement, and I am excited that it includes a mental and physical health network.

The mental and physical health network is a great way to learn from the experiences and stories of our diverse workforce. While we have been learning more and more about the challenges many people face regarding physical and mental health, we know we still have much to learn.

We are looking forward to also championing physical health within our business. Recent studies found that there are around 7.7 million people in the UK, of working age who are registered as disabled or have a health condition that makes it challenging to carry out day to day tasks. In 2019, Atalian Servest signed up to The Disability Confident scheme, as part of our commitment to inclusive recruitment. The scheme allows us to draw from the widest pool of talent, to recruit and retain great people.

For all the reasons outlined above, we have invited all our colleagues to join and to learn more about all three networks; LGBTQ+, Race, Ethnicity & Faith and of course Physical and Mental Health. Our colleagues will be involved in shaping the future of Atalian Servest, and we will work together to ensure these experiences are represented at every level of the business.

There are also network roles, which involve less responsibility than committee roles, but will allow our colleagues to still share their stories and influence our D&I agenda. There is no need to identify with one of the networks to be part of it, but they must have a passion for driving change.

We are looking forward to working on the CHROMA Physical and Mental Health network, and seeing what we achieve over the next 12 months.

Daniel Dickson, Chief Executive Officer and Tom Evans, Chief Financial Officer.

Find out more about CHROMA here.