3 minutes with Kirsty Birch

1. What led you to becoming a workplace wellbeing and mental health specialist?

I actually started my career in accountancy, but my own experiences with adversity and mental health made me realise very early on that we all bring our lives into work with us, whether we talk about them or not.

I wanted to help create workplaces where people feel supported rather than judged, but I’ve also always been very commercially minded. Looking after your people shouldn’t sit in a separate “wellbeing box”  it should be part of business strategy. Your people are one of your biggest assets, and when they feel and perform at their best, both the individual and the business benefit.

That thinking has ultimately led to us creating the Human Return Index™ because businesses measure almost everything, yet we still don’t measure the human side of performance nearly well enough.

2. What’s the best part of your job?

Knowing I can leave a room better than I found it.

Impact doesn’t always happen there and then. Sometimes it’s educating someone, creating awareness, challenging the way they think or simply starting a conversation.

If one person takes something away, changes how they lead or support somebody and then passes that thinking on, the ripple effect can impact tens, hundreds or even thousands of people for years to come.

That’s the bit I love. You don’t always get to see where the impact ends, but you know you started something.

3. Accountants and finance teams are often high-pressure, deadline-driven environments – what’s the human cost you see most often in this profession?

People becoming very good at looking like they’re coping.

Deadlines still get hit. Clients still get looked after. The work still gets done. But underneath that you can have stress, burnout, disengagement and people quietly thinking about leaving.

And that isn’t only a human problem, it becomes a business problem. Absence, presenteeism, turnover, recruitment and lost productivity all have a cost.

Too often businesses only see the problem once it appears in the numbers. I want us to get much better at seeing it before it gets there.

4. What’s one practical, no-budget change an accountancy firm could make this week to support their people?

Ask better questions AND actually listen to the answers.

Not the quick “You alright?” as you walk past someone, but giving people genuine opportunities to say what’s working, what isn’t and what they need.

You don’t need a massive wellbeing budget to start supporting your people better. Sometimes it starts with listening, creating awareness and making it safe for people to be honest AND then actually doing something with what they tell you.

5. How was your experience at Accountex Summit Manchester as our official mental health partner?

Brilliant! And this one felt particularly special.

Being an Official Mental Health Partner means a lot to me because Accountex has given us a platform to have some really important, honest and sometimes difficult conversations without judgement.

But Manchester was also where we soft-launched the Human Return Index™, so it felt like two parts of my journey coming together.

For years I’ve been talking about why supporting people matters. Now, with HRI, we want to help businesses measure and prove it – understanding what is really happening with their people, where the risks are and ultimately how that impacts performance and the bottom line.

Seeing people immediately understand the problem we’re trying to solve and hearing people say, “We need this” was a pretty special moment.

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