Episode 24: The Silent Challenge of the Industry and How To Deal With It

Henry Mc Donald interviews Charlie Winton, founder of OK+ Positive, to discuss the silent challenge that is alarmingly prominent throughout the Construction Industry – Mental Health.

With the industry facing challenges like skilled labour shortages and rising material costs, mental health is often overlooked in construction. Henry and Charlie explore the stigma around mental health within the industry, the lack of support available for those suffering, and how your organisation can help your team.

“The suicide rate in construction is three times more than the UK average”

“The problem is, no matter how many resources you have, if you’re not engaging your people to look at it, to involve themselves in it, to help others with it, then it’s going to be sitting there like any other resource that you’re forced to do each day”

“Your mental health is just like your physical health, the more you work out, the more you look after yourself, the more you exercise – the healthier you are, the fitter you are. It’s the same with mental health. Treat it like you treat your body and look after it because it’s the only one you’ve got. And it’s just as important, if not more important, than your physical health.”

“For every pound you spend on mental health support for your employees, you get five pounds back in productivity.”

About Charlie Winton and the OK+ Positive App

Charlie’s career began with hands-on experience in the construction industry working in scaffolding, before moving into recruitment and financial technology. Now he is the founder of OK+ Positive.

The OK Positive app is a B2B mental health application, which utilises machine learning and AI to preempt mental health triggers enabling an earlier stage of intervention. As an employee, you get a wide range of mental health services, tailored to you as an individual, with complete anonymity. As a business, you can see the overall aggregated mood trends of your business, and where the issues are.

There are three forms of mental health support in the world: preventative, proactive, and reactive. 90% of the solutions in the world focus on being proactive or reactive to a problem, without focusing on preventative. Ok+ positive want to be able to prevent these issues before they become too serious.