Crest Nicholson partners with Fika on employee mental health programme

Published by

Stephen Emerson

Construction firm Crest Nicholson have announced a partnership with Fika to build mental health fitness among employees.

The partnership follows recent research which found 97% of construction industry workers experienced stress over the last year. This alerted Surrey-based house builder, Crest Nicholson, of the need for preventative mental health support for staff.

Fika’s approach has been described by Crest Nicholson as: “impressively proactive and accessible.”

The health project will engage the hard-to-reach male demographic, as well as pioneer an embedded approach to inject daily mental fitness practices into employees’ real-world and digital routines.

Fika’s formalised training and education programmes blend behavioural science with smart technology to embed mental fitness training into workers' day-to-day experience.

It is hoped the partnership will improve workplace culture, individual productivity, engagement and self-efficacy.

The four-stage mental fitness training programme comprises: Defining the mental fitness vision within company culture: Investigating working practices to determine optimal touchpoints for mental fitness training: Modelling best practice in order to embed mental fitness into day-to-day activities: Finally scaling formalised mental fitness training through Fika's advanced technology platform.

Fika helps build mental fitness skills for example, building confidence, stress management, focus, motivation and connection, improving employee engagement and retention, and injury prevention.

Gareth Fryer, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Fika. "Fika offers science-based and evidence-proven courses, to transform individual and organisational productivity, engagement and results.

“We take a customised approach with all our partners to make a tangible difference for their people."

Jane Cookson, Group HR Director at Crest Nicholson, said: "Fika offers an entirely new, impressively proactive, accessible approach to scaling mental fitness across businesses.

"Construction is an industry with a very specific set of challenges when it comes to employee mental health, and we knew rolling out a traditional wellbeing offering was unlikely to engage staff. The Fika platform's pragmatic, goal-oriented approach, modelled on sports psychology, really struck a chord with us."

Stephen Emerson

Stephen Emerson is the Managing Editor of The Business Magazine and is responsible for the publication's print publications and online properties including the newly launched Biz News websites in Hampshire and Dorset. Stephen has been a journalist for 20 years and has worked at local, regional and national publications and led a team which made The Scotsman website one of the fastest growing news sites in the UK with over eight million monthly users. He has a keen interest in technology, property and corporate finance and telling the stories of the people behind the successful firms in these sectors.