About

Team size: 30

Major legal advisers: Clifford Chance, Hogan Lovells, Pinsent Masons, Simmons & Simmons

‘The Mindful Business Charter (MBC)’s impact has surpassed my expectations. It won’t change workplace culture overnight, but it has created a dialogue about mental health in the workplace and steps people can take to reduce stress,’ says Philip Aiken, head of legal for regulated and unregulated lending at Barclays.

Aiken is the driving force behind MBC, a workplace mental health initiative for lawyers pioneered by Barclays alongside Pinsent Masons and Addleshaw Goddard.

Sending emails outside of work hours and not expecting staff on annual leave to be on call are some of the practices the initiative is trying to break down. With 35 organisations now signatories, split between in-house legal teams and private practice, Aiken says the project has taught him the importance of being brave, having conversations people would rather avoid about mental health and ignoring people who dismiss the initiative as unimportant. ‘Today’s health and safety laws have their genesis in our last great workplace revolution, being the industrial revolution where people were being physically injured at work. As our generation navigates the technological revolution, how are we going to stop colleagues from causing injury to their mental wellbeing at work when they have the tools and devices never to switch off from the workplace?’

While Aiken’s ambitions for the MBC continue – new rounds of signatories are announced every few months – he is looking to other areas of workplace wellbeing for legal, including gender ‘intelligence’ training designed to grow the number of women in senior positions. ‘Our gender intelligence programme is designed to increase the number of female colleagues in senior leadership positions in the legal function at Barclays beyond its current level of 43%. Gender intelligence looks at different behaviours from men and women, and how this can realise dominant workplace cultures. If we understand what our dominant workplace culture looks like, then we can work together to break this down.’

Clifford Chance UK co-head of corporate Melissa Fogarty praises Aiken: ‘He’s doing a tremendous amount in the space of mental health and wellbeing through the Mindful Business Charter and is a genuine diversity champion.’