Housebuilder Crest Nicholson has announced a pioneering new partnership with mental fitness platform Fika to proactively prevent mental health decline and improve performance by building the mental fitness skills of its 700 employees.

Fika exists to mainstream mental fitness through formalised training and education programmes and has proven that it's not only possible, but essential to train for mental challenges just as we do for physical challenges. The company blends behavioural science with smart technology to embed mental fitness training into workers' day-to-day experience, transforming workplace culture as well as individual productivity, engagement and self-efficacy.

Fika's expert performance and behavioural psychologists, researchers and technologists will work with Crest Nicholson's leadership team to roll out a mental fitness training programme in four stages:

1. Engaging leadership and co-defining the vision for mental fitness within company culture

2. Investigating Crest Nicholson's unique employee make-up, company culture and working practices to determine the best touchpoints for mental fitness training

3. Engaging with leadership and managers to model best practice and embed mental fitness into day-to-day activities such as reviews and team meetings

4. Scaling formalised mental fitness training to the entire 700-person workforce through Fika's advanced technology platform.

Gareth Fryer, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Fika, said: "Just like our physical muscles, our mental muscles need training to build stamina and strength to improve performance and prevent injury. Fika offers science-based and evidence-proven courses to build those muscles at scale across organisations, transforming individual and organisational productivity, engagement and results. We understand that every company is different, which is why we take a customised approach with all our partners, embedding mental fitness across the most relevant touchpoints to make a tangible difference for their people."


The company has chosen Fika in part because of its accessibility and ability to engage a typically hard-to-reach male demographic, as well as its embedded approach, building mental fitness into multiple everyday touchpoints - both real-world and digital - for employees.

Jane Cookson, Group HR Director at Crest Nicholson, said: "Fika offers an entirely new, impressively proactive, accessible approach to scaling mental fitness across businesses - with clear evidence of impact.

"Construction is an industry with a very specific set of challenges when it comes to employee mental health, and we knew rolling out a traditional wellbeing offering was unlikely to engage staff. The Fika platform's pragmatic, goal-oriented approach, modelled on sports psychology, really struck a chord with us.

"We're delighted to join forces with them on a programme which we believe will take our people from strength to strength, drive staff engagement and productivity, and reinforce how much we value our people's mental fitness."

Fika Co-Founder and Co-CEO Gareth Fryer said: "We're excited to get started with Crest Nicholson, helping every member of staff learn new mental fitness skills for life. Fika's proactive approach is built on the premise that we wouldn't take on physical challenges like running a marathon without any training - yet as a society we don't proactively train for the many everyday mental challenges we will face in life and at work. At Fika, our mission is to change that - equipping workers from all walks of life with the skills they need, not just to prevent injury, but to thrive."

Fika has been evidenced in randomised control trials to measurably prevent mental health decline, offering statistically significant improvements in self-efficacy, life satisfaction and positive emotion for users - all key drivers of productivity, performance and work engagement.

The platform offers customised, certified microlearning courses mapped to the key transitions employees will face at work - equipping them not just to cope in the face of those challenges, but to thrive. Fika helps its users build mental fitness skills like confidence, stress management, focus, motivation and connection - improving employee engagement and retention, and preventing injury.