Chamber conversations: Marc Drew from Cogito

At Business West, we’re proud to support a diverse network of businesses and organisations, from ambitious start-ups to established firms and charities, all working to make our region stronger and more connected. 

This month, to mark Children’s Mental Health Week, we’re shining a spotlight on one of our Chamber Members whose work is helping to make a real difference to young people, families and communities. 

We’re proud to feature Cogito as our Chamber member of the month, following their acquisition of Thought Bubbles, who have been providing meditation and mindfulness sessions for Key Stage One and Two children since 2017. We caught up with Marc to explore how businesses can play a role in supporting mental wellbeing for people at all stages of their lives.

I founded Cogito in 2014 after over 10 years in the recruitment industry. Having worked for large corporates in that time, I wanted a role which enabled me to have greater freedom in delivering solutions which solved their problems, rather than fixed options set by the company I worked for. 

A typical day varies depending on where I am. If it’s an office day, I am in by 7:00am and start with admin, email and finance tasks. Once the team arrive, my day is usually filled with meetings – team and clients, as well as playing an active role in project delivery when the team are at capacity. Spending time with the team is the best part of the role. We have some incredibly talented and high potential team members, and it’s great seeing them grow. I am usually battling the Bristol traffic from 5:30pm. Home days see a later start and earlier finish – accommodating the school runs – and tend to be more desk-based work and fewer meetings. I might even squeeze in some exercise if time allows.

Cogito is a people solutions company, which means in simple terms, we support employers with all aspects of what it means to be an employer; HR, recruitment, wellbeing training and consulting and reward.

What we believe makes us different to other consultancies is that, along with our subject matter experts who specialise in each area, we have a data and research team who analyse customer, market and candidate data to ensure our projects are evidence-based, not based purely on experience.

This has helped us evolve our business to support companies in better understanding the market they operate in, particularly when recruiting candidates to roles in the West who do not necessarily live here. By highlighting where talent is and what would encourage individuals to relocate, we have helped many companies fulfil roles in the local area.

We are an active founding member of the WECA Good Employment Charter, helping to spread the word of responsible business practice in the area and regularly run HR and Wellbeing training events at our Bristol office.

Mainly through our HR support and research, we recognised that employers were struggling to provide effective wellbeing support to employees and that candidates wanted more wellbeing assistance from prospective employers. We had started to deliver Mental Health First Aid training, but realised that much more was needed. Thought Bubbles was formed by an old school friend of mine with an initial focus on children and school settings. I felt that if we could combine the workplace wellbeing range with younger generations, we could develop a business that supported people of all ages, through school, at home and in the workplace.

I have a 12-year-old and a 5-year-old. Seeing them adapt to the rapidly changing environments they encounter as they grow up reminded me of times in my childhood when anxiety would kick in and how that continued through my teenage and adult years – particularly in workplace settings. 

I believe that if we can equip young people with techniques to control their emotional wellbeing, particularly stress and anxiety, they will have a greater opportunity to thrive in later life. This will not only benefit them hugely, but also provide wider benefits to their parents, society and employers. 

I really wish that I had understood how normal it was to feel apprehensive, worried and anxious about new situations and could have centred myself better when I was their age. 

As an employer, I try to ensure we educate our team on the signs of mental health issues in the workplace. This not only helps them to rationalise some of their own feelings but also to spot the signs that their colleagues may need some support. This creates a culture of understanding and removes stigmas associated with mental health in our business. I believe this ensures our team feel supported, enjoy working here and perform to their best.

Research shows rising anxiety and stress at younger ages. I believe it’s important that organisations recognise the impact this has upon parents and should ensure they have the right support in place so they have reasonable flexibility when they need it. I know it’s not easy when the focus of the organisation is about delivery and bottom line however, in my experience, flexibility is usually rewarded and giving the parent space to address their home situation gives them the best chance to succeed in your business.

Social media and digital overload are now set in, and it's one of the reasons I wanted the Children’s Meditation Programme to be a physical book-based resource rather than online, so we could help them get off devices. Most parents I speak to say they wish their child spent less time online, but find it difficult to enforce. I’d like to see employers provide access to other parents who have found a way through it. 

Five simple, cost-effective ways to better support working parents:

◀ Flexible working

◀ Normalise parent mental health conversations  

◀ Create parent networks

◀ Train managers to support staff with caring responsibilities

◀ Provide parents with access to resources to help them and their children.

It’s easy to get sucked into the day-to-day and end up focusing on your own business without getting the context of what’s going on around you. Business networks really help to reassure, inspire and provide a learning opportunity. I always come away from engagement with these communities and networks with pages of ideas and a will to do more.

We’ve been members for two and a half years, and the greatest benefit has been learning from others who have founded, built and led businesses before me, both where they have made mistakes and where they got it right.  The networking sessions provide a great opportunity to learn.

See it as a networking opportunity and engage regularly. It’s a chance to build local business relationships, to learn about the initiatives in the local area, which will have an impact on your business and you, and provide you and your colleagues with a forum to have your say.