- Legal
Liedekerke counted 83 consultations in its first year
This law firm's HR team wanted to help employees further than its own mandate allows. Anonymous video consultations with a psychologist were the answer.
In a nutshell
- 83
- Consultations
- video consultations with a psychologist or psychotherapist, in the first year
- 5
- Average journey
- consultations per employee who uses the platform
- 1 day
- Live fast
- from a dedicated landing page to employees able to start
- Stress
- Biggest theme
- most chosen theme, followed by relationships and personal growth
- Company profile
- Belgian law firm.
- HR is the first point of contact for employees who are struggling with something.
- In contact with BloomUp since 2020, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
- Challenges
- HR managers have no background in psychology.
- For some topics, the threshold to knock on HR's door was too high.
- Mental wellbeing is still often taboo, especially in a competitive sector.
- Process & implementation
- A dedicated BloomUp x Liedekerke landing page.
- Employees could get started after one day.
- The Content Hub feeds internal communication about mental wellbeing.
- Emphasis on prevention: stopping small things from growing big.
- Impact
- Fully anonymous access to recognized psychologists.
- No waiting lists and no cost to the employee.
- Anonymized dashboard insights feed the wellbeing policy.
- Employees bring what they learn into conversations with colleagues.
Mental wellbeing in the workplace
As at many other organizations, the coronavirus pandemic sparked awareness of the impact companies and their work environment can have on their employees' mental wellbeing. It got people thinking at Liedekerke too. That is why the HR team contacted BloomUp in 2020.
As HR managers, we are the first point of contact for employees who are struggling with something. In practice, this means we are increasingly faced with serious conversations in which employees say they are not feeling well, or are running into certain things. Whether it relates to situations in their private life or to work-related problems, it clearly always has an impact on their work. For example, we see employees suddenly performing less well, losing motivation or functioning less well within their team.
“BloomUp offers something very personal, and it motivates employees to take the step towards therapy in situations where they would otherwise be less likely to.”
Leila MouraliHR Legal Manager · Liedekerke
“Our HR managers have no background in psychology. This limits the help we can offer when it comes to mental wellbeing. As a result, we feel we cannot give our employees the full support they deserve.”
Tailored support
Our employees can always come to us, and we will always advise them as well as we can depending on the situation, but our HR managers have no background in psychology. This limits the help we can offer when it comes to mental wellbeing and psychological support. As a result, we feel we cannot give our employees the full support they deserve.
We also notice that in some situations the threshold is too high for people to knock on our door to discuss certain things. That means we cannot tackle the problem, and our employees keep carrying it around unnecessarily.
It is exactly in those cases, where issues are hard to talk about and very sensitive, that it matters to give your employees the right support. An external partner, where people can go in complete anonymity, can be the solution at that point. Through the platform, we can offer our employees video consultations with a psychologist or psychotherapist, completely free and within their own comfort zone.
“This external helpline gives our employees the freedom to talk about anything at all. What they learn from it, they can then bring into conversations with colleagues.”
A preventive approach
During our first meeting, we raised the needs we have within Liedekerke around mental wellbeing. BloomUp came up with a concrete approach to tackle our stumbling blocks. We got our own BloomUp x Liedekerke landing page, so our employees could start using the new platform after just one day.
Access to the platform and professional support is the first step. It is also important to communicate about it openly and clearly with your employees. Mental wellbeing is unfortunately still often seen as taboo in our society. The Content Hub that BloomUp provides helps us communicate about it in an accessible way. The material can be shared directly with employees and managers and makes the most common complaints easier to talk about.
At Liedekerke, we think it is important to invest proactively in our employees' mental wellbeing. That way, we do not give small things the chance to grow into bigger problems. For someone who finds it hard to set priorities or set boundaries, for example, it can really help to talk to a professional now, before such things get the chance to grow over time into, say, lower productivity or burnout.
Working with concrete data
Our employees can use the BloomUp platform completely anonymously. There is no way for us to find out who does or does not use the platform, or for what reason. For us, this confirms once again the importance of an external platform: it can give our employees the extra safety and trust that we as an HR department find harder to offer.
What we can do is get anonymized insights through the dashboard into, among other things, the themes that come up most and which age groups mainly use the platform. That in turn helps us fine-tune our mental wellbeing policy and invest further in a preventive approach. It gives us the right insights to do more work on certain themes through workshops, internal communication and more.
The great thing about our partnership with BloomUp is that there is real room for dialogue. Every organization is put together differently, and at Liedekerke we have our own specific needs too. BloomUp took the time to listen to them and to look for a suitable, tailored solution together. Our employees greatly appreciate that we take away this cost, which is often high.
For Liedekerke, BloomUp is the way to show that they take mental wellbeing seriously and want to look for a solution together. In a competitive sector such as a law firm, it is still often a taboo. By making it something people can talk about and taking concrete action, they give employees the freedom to talk about anything at all, and the tools to handle situations themselves.
