KPMG strikes deal with Cambridge University to study workplace wellbeing
KPMG has struck a deal with Cambridge University to let researchers come into the Big Four firm to study the impacts of its mental wellbeing initiatives.
The Big Four accountancy firm’s partnership will see Cambridge University researchers allowed into the company to study workplace wellbeing – with a view to developing strategies to boost productivity, minimise staff turnover, and cut wellbeing related absences.
The partnership comes as accountancy firms face fierce competition for staff, in the face of a battle for talent, that has seen professional services companies offer increasingly high salaries and ever more inventive perks in their efforts to recruit the right staff.
The study also comes as major employers seek to grapple with the “Great Resignation” that has seen millions of British people leave jobs.
KPMG UK chief executive Jon Holt said: “Businesses need research and data to help them invest in the right areas to support their staff through a huge period of change, as we emerge from the pandemic and introduce new ways of working.”
Holt continued in noting that workplace wellbeing is an “under researched area” as he suggested there is a lack of empirical data around the impacts of mental wellbeing initiatives.
The initiative comes as part of KPMG’s planned “once-in-a-generation” £300m investment into transforming its business over the next three years.
Cambridge University’s Professor Andy Neely said the study will seek to “reimagine the world of work” with a view to developing “effective strategies and interventions” to improve workplace wellbeing.