Newcastle based Our Mind’s Work that delivers mental health training programmes to organisations across the UK has announced a partnership with financial wellbeing experts Wagestream in response to the deepening cost of living crisis.
Co-founder of Our Mind’s Work Emily Pearson from County Durham has over 20 years experience delivering mental health and wellbeing services in the community and workplaces. She said: “By partnering with Wagestream we can provide a broader platform of support by helping employers develop and implement a wellbeing strategy that factors in the increasing cost of living challenges people are facing.
“Increasingly we are seeing people making buying decisions based around the trade offs between the essentials of food, water and heating.
“We believe in better wellbeing for all; financial stress is a major barrier to achieving this, and we recognise that now, more than ever employees urgently need support.
“Wagestream provides a practical solution to how employers and employees can make their wage cycles work better for them.”
Created in 2018 Wagestream is now used by 2 million employees globally and is guided by a social charter enforced by an independent advisory board ensuring it is achieving its goal to improve the financial wellbeing of front line workers. It does this with an app platform focused on budgeting, streaming, learning and saving to provide better awareness and financial resilience for users.
In addition Wagestream together with the DWP’s Money and Pension Service produces a State of the Wellbeing report engaging with 10,000 UK employees and 1,000 employers to shed light on financial and mental health with results covering 2022 up to the end of the summer – https://wagestream.com/en/state-of-financial-wellbeing-cost-of-living-2022/. It highlighted that worries over finances are now common with 72% consumed by money worries at least once a week; an increase of 57% since before the start of the crisis.
Emily said: “The link between good mental health and financial wellbeing is proven but the cost of living crisis has brought existing issues in the UK into much sharper focus. This report clearly shows that most people are worried about money, with 24% of people admitting to worrying about money everyday and over two thirds (65%) calling on their employers for more help with finances.”
Lisa Cohen director of partnerships at Wagestream said: “Emily and Our Mind’s Work share the same values and goals as Wagestream. Our platform is used by over 2 million people globally through organisations that include a growing number of trusted employers including NHS Trusts, local authorities, a number of blue light emergency services, Bupa, Next, Halfords and Greene King.
“We were launched in 2018 with a mission to provide people with an additional lever of financial resilience and the means to work through a financial issue without getting into unmanageable debt and ultimately crisis. Today, every boardroom should be urgently discussing financial and mental health. The majority of the workforce is worrying more about money since the Cost of Living Crisis began.
She added: “As a certified B Corp we are guided by a social charter and answerable to an independent impact and advisory board of academics and senior figures in the charity sector that hold us accountable for improving financial wellbeing for frontline workers.”
Abigail Hancock, Our Mind’s Work administrator and business admin apprentice, said: “The cost of living crisis coming so soon after Covid-19 has been a real blow. I’ve been working at Our Mind’s Work two years which has been great following the strain of lockdown which brought out a lot of social anxiety and depression as the resulting redundancy process took its toll.
“Its been amazing to work here and gain great experience at the same time as undertaking an apprenticeship qualification and receive a decent wage (Abigail receives £18,000 salary as an apprentice at OMW).
“But I live on my own and as the cost of living has gone up I’ve found it necessary to take on a second job at a local pub over the weekend.
“I’m hoping the budgeting platform Wagestream is going to help me manage my finances and get to pay day without going into debt.”