Opening up about mental health

In January 2020, Compass announced it had joined forces with Hospitality Action (HA) to support the industry charity’s major new mental health awareness programme. The partnership launched to dispel the stigma attached to mental health problems around the hospitality industry and to provide support to those who need it by equipping operators with the knowledge, resources and tools they need to safeguard against situations that could result in a mental health crisis.

We recognise that hospitality can be a challenging industry in which to work, which is why we are working with HA and looking at how we can make a positive difference in helping our people as well as our colleagues across the industry in managing their mental health.

One of our Sous Chefs, Faye de Souza, has bravely spoken about her mental health experiences to encourage others to speak up and seek help when they need it.

Last year, Faye experienced problems with her mental health following what should have been real positives in her life, securing a new home and promotion at work, however, the changes became overwhelming and she soon realised she couldn’t cope and went to her Head Chef and Hospitality Action for support. In this video Faye talks about her experience and how she was helped during this challenging time for her.

HA’s mental health programme offers practical solutions in print, online and in person to help employees, colleagues and managers to identify and respond to mental health issues.

If you want to find out more about the support available through the Hospitality Action Mental Health Awareness campaign – please click here.

You can read about our partnership here.

About mental health in the hospitality industry:

• Four out of five hospitality workers find their job stressful some or most of time.
• Half describe their job as stressful most or all of time.
• Four out of five believe stress levels have increased in the past three years.
• Over half (56%) do not make employers aware of mental health problems.
• Meanwhile, suicide - already the single biggest killer of men under 45 in UK – has a disproportionate prevalence in the hospitality sector.