Inspired Villages wins award for mental health initiatives

Inspired Villages is proud to have won the ‘Best mental health initiative (SME)’ award at the Not A Red Card Awards.

Established by Legal & General, the Not A Red Card Awards celebrates organisations and individuals that have developed and implemented best practice when it comes to mental health provision in the workplace.

Holistic wellbeing, including mental health, lies at the heart of Inspired Villages’ purpose. The company seeks to transform not only the later life experience of over 65s through its focus on wellbeing, but also the lives of its 350 plus colleagues.

Inspired has helped support the mental health of its employees in various ways. These include: hosting a weekly ‘Inspired Live’ session via Microsoft Teams enabling the senior team to broadcast reassuring messages and allow anyone in the business to ask a question of them directly; working in partnership with Hero Wellbeing to create a toolkit on the internal employee platform of mindfulness exercises, healthy recipes and much more to help colleagues adjust to a different way of working during lockdown; establishing ‘Time for Tea’, an initiative that gives colleagues time in the working day to have a tea break to just chat online or over the phone with a colleague in a different part of the business; and fun online initiatives like a private employee Facebook group and online quizzes.

Jamie Bunce, CEO of Inspired Villages, said:

“We are delighted to have the ‘Best mental health initiative (SME)’ award at the Not A Red Card Awards. Employee wellbeing is a top priority for the business – we not only want to redefine retirement for our customers, but we also want to create a vibrant workplace for people to thrive within. I am very proud of the way everyone at Inspired Villages has risen to the challenge of operating during a global pandemic – the team has worked incredibly hard and still made time to be extremely supportive of the wellbeing of their fellow colleagues. Thank you to everyone for the various ways they have contributed to ensuring our mental health initiatives have been a success.”