Linklaters launches wellness app to support UK lawyers

Magic circle law firm Linklaters has partnered with a tech start-up to launch a specialist mental health app.

BetterSpace is an innovative wellbeing app that supports UK employees to take a proactive approach to their wellbeing. The workplace app is accompanied with a £300 ‘wellbeing allowance’ which the firm said can be used in conjunction with the app to support employees in finding “personally relevant mental health-related tools and resources.”

Linklaters employees will have access to a unique directory for virtual and in-person wellbeing services, such as sleep and mindfulness products, and volunteering opportunities.

Linklaters had previously hosted two pilots of this app back in 2018 during its development stages; the success of the second pilot in 2020 has paved the way to this formal partnership. According to BetterSpace, 336 Linklaters employees (across different teams) used the app and saw a 70% improvement in their mental health and 81% discovered something they will continue to use.

Linklaters isn’t the first law firm to offer similar wellbeing apps to their lawyers; in 2019 Slaughter and May introduced the wellbeing app Unmind and in the same year Taylor Wessing offered its staff free premium access to the meditation app Headspace. With the pandemic urging employers to focus on its employees mental health, we have since seen the likes of Eversheds and now Linklaters follow in their footsteps.

Nick Syson, Linklaters’ health and wellbeing partner, said: “It is more important than ever that we nurture our physical and mental wellbeing and we hope that the BetterSpace app will support our people in doing just that. We are proud of our culture of being open, positive and proactive about mental health and to be championing the next frontier in employee wellbeing support.”