Wellbeing

For BAM, ‘making possible’ goes far beyond delivering buildings and infrastructure: the success of every single project depends directly on our people. They’re our greatest resource and the driving force behind our growth.

But we know life can be hugely challenging, and personal circumstances and family situations can be extremely difficult and unsettling at times. That’s why we invest directly in wellbeing: the business case for supporting our people has never been stronger.

Wellbeing affects everyone. It underpins all that we do at BAM. As an employer we’re in a unique place to support, advise, inform and educate all our colleagues – not just the people who work directly for BAM, but our supply chain too – on a huge range of health and wellbeing issues.

This in turn enables our people to make informed choices about their lives, supports them to work safely and effectively, and helps them reach their full potential. 

We’re there for people facing most of life’s challenges and can offer everything from a listening ear to professional or clinical support to all that need it, when they need it.

It’s also important to normalise conditions and issues that are often shrouded in embarrassment, awkwardness, ignorance and sometimes shame. Only by talking about these kinds of things – and getting some knowledge and understanding – can we then listen to and support others from a place of genuine interest, care and empathy and help everyone around us feel a little more comfortable. 

Real-life challenges: compassion and understanding

Across the world, there’s a growing call to arms around suicide awareness and prevention. With much higher rates among men and in the construction industry, this is a natural focus for BAM and we aim to be very proactive when it comes to our training and awareness-raising activities. 

This starts with talking about suicide and providing high-level support for people working with at-risk colleagues. But beyond this we’re also involved in research projects with relevant charities and universities to understand triggers and what we can do to address them. We’re also fortunate that some of our colleagues are OK to share their personal experiences of suicide, to help others understand and cope.

In common with most organisations, we recognise that work-related stress causes illness and absence at BAM, and it can play a part in major long-term and later-life health conditions. For us, the first steps towards tackling this issue are to offer training and to raise awareness in a non-judgemental way, as well as carrying out risk assessments and monitoring stress-related sickness absence.

In terms of broader mental health, we’re working to ensure that every part of the business understands the basics: opening the doors to meaningful conversations with colleagues, family, friends and beyond.

We push for everyone to focus on their work-life balance: providing tools and guides to help people switch off and encouraging senior people to lead by example.

Across BAM, hundreds of trained wellbeing champions are there to raise awareness and provide first-line support. But everyone can access professional help too, should they need it. This is integrally linked to our Safe and Well programme, focused on safety and performance.

Both within and beyond the workplace, so many of our people have to contend with the complexities of parenting or caring for loved ones, with pregnancy or fertility issues, menopause, specific men’s or women’s health conditions… We got it covered, by giving people access to expert, external professional support via a market-leading app. 

Altogether, we offer more than 60 benefits to our employees, through a single on-line platform. Most of these directly support and improve wellbeing, including financial, social, physical and mental health.

The heart of our business

We’re proud of our achievements when it comes to wellbeing, but we know there will always be more we can learn and more we can do.

BAM is rated as a gold-level Investor in People (for wellbeing) and we’re ranked gold in the Mind Index (2024). We think it’s equally important to recognise and celebrate the individuals and teams within the business who go above and beyond to champion wellbeing. Since 2019, BAM and its people have been nominated almost 80 times for wellbeing awards.

We make no apologies for putting people first. We see wellbeing as inextricably linked to social sustainability, and a vital element in diversity and inclusion, and it will continue to be one of our main priorities.

More to discover

Take a look at the latest BAM wellbeing report for an in-depth review of all our initiatives, as well as the facts, figures and stories behind the vital work going on across the business and our ecosystem.

You can also learn more about our people and careers at BAM.

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