New committee to boost well-being

Gorrissen Federspiel has made positive mental health a strategic point of priority to prevent workplace stress. For this reason, we established in 2022 a well-being committee to guide management and provide practical tools for preventive measures.

“We work a lot, and our clients have high expectations of us,” says Mikael Philip Schmidt, partner and member of the well-being committee. In the spring of 2022, Mikael Philip Schmidt kicked off the work of the new committee that was set up against the backdrop of the well-being survey conducted in the fall of 2021. The survey pointed to challenges in the area of positive mental health.

“Our line of business is a high performance environment. In certain periods, we put in huge amounts of work. Especially for newcomers, it may be difficult to work out what’s expected of them by clients and colleagues,” says Mikael Philip Schmidt.

The well-being committee’s most important task is to address well-being challenges and to offer solutions and preventive measures. This has resulted in a Q&A that is now being used by our practice groups as a tool to clearly adjust expectations of availability, handle high work pressure, ask for help, give feedback, learn from mistakes and to support a pleasant and positive tone of communication and work culture.

A short step from decision to action

“We can never remove the risk of stress in our line of business or from our firm specifically. But the well-being committee is able to offer a range of preventive tools that reduce the risk of stress, help break the taboo and make it easier to talk about stress and low well-being,” says Mikael Philip Schmidt. Together with another partner on the well-being committee, Mikael Philip Schmidt helps ensure that there is a short step from the committee’s decisions to the management’s implementation of the initiatives.

Having been set up on an ad hoc basis, the well-being committee is now a standing committee that provides practical guides. The committee’s initial focus on the well-being of lawyers is now being rolled out to all groups of employees. The committee – that consists of members from all employee groups – has also advocated more frequent well-being surveys with small-scale surveys to be conducted on a quarterly basis, supplementing the annual survey. Moreover, all new employees will be introduced to the well-being committee and its work as part of the induction programme.

“I’m pleased with our achievements in 2022. We’ve made good headway, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us when it comes to supporting a high level of well-being and ensuring that stress will never be an acceptable consequence of working at Gorrissen Federspiel,” Mikael Philip Schmidt concludes.

Nothing good can be said about the war in Ukraine. But sometimes, in the midst of tragic circumstances, human stories emerge that shed light in the darkness. Such as the stories of Mariia Chentsova and Yuliia Samko, who came to Denmark shortly after the invasion in February 2022. Together with her 12-year-old son, Mariia (40) travelled to the Danish town of Frederiksværk, which has been the home of her sister for many years.

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