Appearing on the Diversity and Inclusivity Finance Forum (DIFF) podcast to discuss mental health in the mortgage sector, Jason Berry, group sales director at Crystal Specialist Finance and co-founder of Mortgage Industry Mental Health Charter (MIMHC), said hybrid working made it difficult to get beneath the surface of how people were feeling.
Although spotting the signs that a person’s behaviour, appearance or energy levels had changed could be “relatively easy”, Berry said managers and supervisors could need extra help in identifying this and suggested having regular interactions with staff.
Berry said: “People who are struggling, they do wear different masks. It is difficult to understand and establish which is the right mask and how they are truly feeling.
“If you truly care about the people around you, you can spot tell-tale signs, and you’ve got to really know your staff and care about your staff.”
He said asking people how they felt on a scale from one to 10 could be more effective than simply asking: “How are you feeling?”
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Rob Jupp, CEO of the Brightstar Group, who has been open about his depression, said he was an “Oscar winner” at masking his struggles with his mental health.
Jupp’s depression started at the age of 15 but he was diagnosed with heavy depression at the age of 41.
Jupp said the people close to him responded with, “no, not you, you’re the last person I would have expected”, which Jupp “thought was quite interesting” and showed that people could get good at hiding their feelings.
He said working from home practices made it easier to mask and urged companies to introduce mental health first aiders.
More than a tenth of the Brightstar workforce are mental health first aiders who represent the demographics of the company. He said many people reached out to them each week, not just to talk about themselves but also to raise concerns about their loved ones.
The highs and lows of the festive period
Referring to the changes in mood that could be brought about by different seasons, Berry said MIMHC’s survey showed people across the sector did not always get enough sleep and were working longer hours. Berry said this typically worsened in the last few months of the year.
He said a large contributor to this yearly trend was seasonal affective disorder (SAD), where behaviour and internal bodily functions changed, leading to fatigue, lower energy levels and mood disturbances.
Host Bharat Sagar said the festive period meant there were many parties, which could be difficult for people who were “not feeling up to it”.
Jupp agreed, saying this time of year could be “horrific” and “so awful” that people who were not in the mood to celebrate would find reasons not to attend events.
Jupp said he had done this as he did not feel he was able to go out and be the person people expected him to be.
Although Jupp advises his kids to be the best version of themselves, not the best version people expected them to be, he said it was the “hardest thing to get yourself to do”.
He said: “Over a period of time, particularly those veterans of us who have been in the industry for in excess of three decades, people get a concept of the way that you are and expect you to be like that. It’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Jupp added that the Christmas period came with the “biggest extremes” because there were highs from alcohol abuse, staying out late, and “doing some crazy stuff together”, followed by the inevitable down a mental health sufferer would feel, which could be worsened by a hangover.
He said for someone with a condition like bipolar, the highs and lows could potentially be fatal as it could bring people “close to harm’s way”.
“This is a really dangerous time of year,” he added, saying instances of people taking their lives became more common.
Sagar said some people who struggled with their mental health forgot how to enjoy things and tended to perform for other people. He also said people found it hard to take time for themselves.
Jupp said telling someone to look after themselves was the easiest advice to give, but the hardest to take. He said it did not have to be a huge task such as having a coffee or going for a walk, but any action could be beneficial, as if people did not take care of themselves, everyone around them would “bear the brunt”.
Jupp added: “The maintenance of one’s own good mental health, for those of us who accept that we will be living with mental health for the rest of our lives, is a full-time occupation.
“Every single day, you have to make you your priority. Which is really difficult to do; it’s counter-intuitive to make you your own priority because it feels selfish and self-indulgent.”
Berry said everyone had their own coping mechanisms and own way to prioritise themselves, as there was “no hard and fast rule”.
He said there were consistent themes, such as finding someone to “share the load with”, but everyone copes differently.
Progressing mental health awareness in the mortgage sector
Berry said despite it being four years since MIMHC launched and there being more than 170 signatories, its cause was still in the raising awareness phase.
He said the penetration within the lender community was “phenomenal”, but brokers needed the most support.
“We’ve still got so many of them that we’re failing to serve and failing to raise awareness with,” Berry said. He added that it often took a period of short-notice product withdrawals to see a spike in broker firms signing up to MIMHC.
Berry added: “I still think we’ve got a massive amount of work to continue raising awareness. Thereafter comes this propositional support where we actually start serving the community and we understand what the sector actually needs.”
He said the sector was not yet at “first base” with this, but said MIMHC had a busy year ahead and a lot of work to do
Jupp said progress had been made but it was not always quick enough.
“This journey never stops, and progress always needs to continue but we’ve come a long, long way in a fairly short amount of time,” he added.
Listen to and watch the full episode [35:55] hosted by Bharat Sagar, ambassador at large at AE3 Media, featuring guests Jason Berry, group sales director at Crystal Specialist Finance and co-founder of MIMHC, and Rob Jupp, CEO of the Brightstar Group.
