Demand for NABS’ Core Services Doubles in Q1 2023

NABS, the advertising, marketing and media charity, today releases its Q1 2023 stats, revealing a dramatic 100% year-on-year increase in the number of industry workers getting in touch for help. A large proportion of that help relates to redundancy and financial matters as the cost of living crisis continues.

Calls to NABS’ support team also rose by 47%. Emotional support tops the reason for calling NABS, at 30% of all calls. Of those emotional support calls, the top two reasons are mental health (55%) and low mood and confidence (14%). Financial assistance accounts for 23% of all calls, while redundancy accounts for 15% of all calls. Online access to NABS digital redundancy support has almost trebled compared to the same period last year, reflecting the urgent need for guidance on employee rights, as notable waves of redundancies sweep the industry.

Therapy referrals have doubled as people seek help with the lasting effects of the pandemic and ongoing financial crisis on mental wellness. Notably, therapy referrals from men have risen by 50% YOY: historically, men have been more reticent to seek out emotional support from NABS.

In response to this continued rise in demand, NABS today reveals additional solutions to help drive individual and cultural change for the industry.

NABS is expanding its shared learning experiences to offer a broader and more agile service with two key changes.

1. Expanded Grow workshops offer tried-and-tested mental wellness content and leadership and management development.

2. New Explore sessions are additional coach-led group discussion sessions designed to help people understand emerging industry issues through collective exploration in a safe space. These will be developed monthly in direct response to what’s going on both within and outside the industry: the first one has explored financial wellbeing.

NABS is also significantly expanding Advance<https://nabs.org.uk/nabs-training/>, its commercial training offer, after a couple of years of industry trials. As the name suggests, each Advance commercial training course is designed to advance the mental wellness of everybody in our industry. While NABS’ well-established charity offer focuses on help for the individual, (and is free at the point of access for all), Advance offers these same products for organisations to buy in, tailored to their needs, allowing them to train their employees at scale.

NABS’ Advance offer has been introduced in direct response to requests from numerous industry companies over the years for NABS to open up its training products to all of their staff. Advance is one extra way that organisations can help their leaders acquire the skills and mindsets needed to support staff mental wellness. Courses include Trusted Hybrid Leader and Inclusive Leader, addressing the current needs of managers looking to support themselves and others in a post-pandemic workplace.

Profits from Advance bookings will go straight back into NABS, providing much-needed funds to help the charity continue to support employees across industry, in the face of continually rising demands for its free services.

Uzma Afridi, principal business psychologist, NABS, co-leads on Advance. She says, “We’ve identified the various factors that will help people to perform at work through the lens of mental wellness, teamed with neuroscience. From building trust and inclusivity as a leader to confidence and authentic relationship-building, organisations can give their teams a full suite of skills to support their mental wellness at work.”

Sue Todd, CEO, NABS, says, “It’s clear that new solutions are called for if we’re to advance the mental wellness of our industry and serve the growing demand for support, insight and development. Helping more individuals with our Grow and Explore offer remains at the heart of the charity, but opening up our expertise and much of the tried-and-tested content for organisations to also buy, seems like a no-brainer. This is especially the case as the profits from our commercial offer feed right back into the charity for more individuals to benefit.”

To find out more about Advance visit here.