Multevo has become one of the first founding partners of the Highways Mind Health Association (HMHA), a nonprofit community interest company established to improve mental health support across the highways sector.
HMHA aims to bring organisations together to share learning, raise standards and make positive mental health and psychological safety a normal part of working life in the industry.
Focus on sector-wide support
The partnership comes as the highways workforce continues to face pressures including stress, burnout and the demands of frontline service delivery. The announcement notes that just under two-thirds of the UK highways workforce is male, while three in four suicides in England are men.
Multevo said its workforce has grown by more than 1,300% since 2020 and now numbers more than 500 people nationwide. The company said it has introduced mental health first aiders, free counselling for employees and an in-house wellbeing app.
The firm said joining HMHA would allow it to support people already working in highways while helping create an environment that could attract more young people to the sector.
Aimee Dewse, head of marketing at Multevo, said: “We’ve always believed that looking after our people goes beyond providing good benefits and support services. It’s about creating an environment where people feel valued, listened to and comfortable talking about how they’re doing.
“We’ve made positive steps at Multevo and HMHA gives us the opportunity to learn from others across the sector and contribute our own experiences as we continue to develop.”
Sam Munslow, founder of HMHA, said the industry needed to move away from treating pressure, stress and burnout as an unavoidable part of the job.
“Mental health is fundamentally a people, leadership and resilience issue, and it has a direct impact on how well our organisations perform,” Munslow said.
“Multevo’s commitment as a founding partner shows what can happen when businesses choose to put their people at the heart of the future of highways.”
Multevo said the partnership forms part of its wider social value commitments, including support for local people, skills and communities.