Mental Health

CMS recognises that good mental health is important for all of us. The firm is proud to offer a range of initiatives to our colleagues to support good habits and good mental health as well as assist people when their mental health is affected.

Mindful Business Charter

CMS is a signatory of this Charter, a collaboration (initially) between leading banks and law firms committed to driving change in how we work. The bilateral collaboration between service providers and clients is what makes the Charter so powerful. The intention of the Mindful Business Charter is to remove unnecessary sources of stress and promote better mental health and wellbeing in the workplace and is based on four commitments: openness and respect; smart meetings and emails; respecting rest periods; mindful delegation.

Employee benefits

Colleagues have access to 24/7 confidential counselling via Lifeworks, our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP).

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) provision is available throughout the UK (including an onsite clinician in our London headquarters).

Mindfulness sessions are available on a monthly basis to our employees to help them pay more attention to the present moment – as connecting with our own thoughts and feelings, and to the world around us can improve our mental wellbeing.

Talking about mental health

CMS uses World Mental Health Day and Mental Health Awareness Week as key milestones throughout the year to encourage more conversations internally about what mental health is, how to support good mental health, equip people to support their colleagues and teams with their mental health and remove the stigma around  mental health conditions.

This is Me

The health and wellbeing of our people is vital for the success of our organisation; that is why it is our priority to create an environment supportive of mental health and wellbeing.

Several of our colleagues have opened up about the challenges they have faced or are still facing with their mental health in our ‘This is Me’ video. Their courage has contributed to normalizing the conversation about mental health in our workplace and enabled many more colleagues to share their stories and even for some to seek help. You can watch CMS video here.

Following the success of the CMS film, in which our colleagues talked openly about their mental health, and the challenges they have faced and overcome and on the occasion of Mental Health Awareness Week 2019 and the first anniversary of our video, we asked our colleagues about the experience of sharing their story with the firm.

You can download a PDF below where they discuss This is Me a year on.

This is Me brochure image