A survey completed by Today’s Conveyancer into the mental health and well-being of our readers has revealed an astonishing 49% of conveyancers have seen colleagues leave the profession in the last 6 months because their role was negatively impacting their mental health.
Conducted to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week the survey laid bare the impact of working in conveyancing on people’s mental health. We asked people what impact has working in the conveyancing industry over the last 12 months had on your mental health? With 1 being no impact and 5 a Significant impact. 60% of people selected 4 or 5.
With conveyancing job roles at a high since we started monitoring them last year, it’s clear that employers still need to be pro active and support their staff as much as possible even though we begin to move away from some of the restrictions that our lives have been placed. Just 52% of those surveyed felt that their employer had done enough to support their mental health. The anonymous survey asked people to comment on some of the initiatives implemented by employers, here are some of the comments we received:
“Full remote working support has led to distinct improvement in mental health and well-being”.
“Scheduled regular ‘time for you’ sessions both personally and across the company. Tried to reduce workload where possible by distributing evenly across the team. Promoting and encouraging a work/life balance”
“Enabled home working for all, increasing training, focused on strengthening the team mentality, added resource to manage the workload as required, created team wellness calls and individual well-being calls – been great!”
“If someone does seem to be struggling then they will do all they can to ease pressure and stress to avoid any impact on the mental health”.
The key denominator behind the struggles seems to be workload. 85% selected this as the key factor behind their mental health challenges; unsurprising given the demand in the market currently. 29% selected working from home and sadly 17% selected loneliness as other key factors. With this week being Mental Health Awareness Week this a timely reminder to check on those who may live or work alone.
Last month Today’s Conveyancer launched our Call for Kindness Pledge as part of our Call for Kindness campaign, inviting the industry to sign up to the commitment to respect one another, relate to the challenges we all face and recognise our own roles when it comes to interacting with fellow professionals.
Tom Lyes, Director of Engagement at Today’s Conveyancer, commented:
“These results are extremely concerning and saddening. People leaving the profession especially is a worrying trend and one that needs to be tackled head on. The work of the likes of Law Care and The Conveyancing Foundation often goes un-noticed and I’d encourage anyone who is struggling to reach out to the support structures that are available and encourage the promotion of these across the industry.”
We will re-run the survey over May and June to understand the impact of the impending SDLT holiday deadline and whether the gradual lifting of restrictions across the country begins to have an impact.
One Response
I wonder how many moving company employees will sympathise?
After decades of being left to rot for 3-4 hours all through the afternoon because a conveyancer couldn’t be bothered to enact key release quickly, I’d bet not many.
When you’ve had 3 days out of five of this, for 6-7 months of the year for years on end, missing children’s bedtime, dinner, and quality family time the sympathy will be lacking.
Many from the moving industry will be looking at these articles bemoaning stress and working hours and wryly smiling, knowing that conveyancing has pushed this type of stress, and these working hours on moving companies for decades.
The next time it’s 8pm and you’re working remember that for many moving crews that’s common, and has been not just for a relatively short bubble but for decades.
All because conveyancers choose not to complete chains in a timely correct fashion on the day.