Payments solution provider, Trust Retail, has become a corporate partner of the Retail Trust, and will work with the charity to support its efforts to improve health and wellbeing for those working across the sector.

The partnership comes as research for the Retail Trust’s new living well in retail handbook found that 71% of workers were experiencing deteriorating mental health, with nearly one in five struggling to meet monthly outgoings and two-thirds of managers concerned about the impact of abusive customers. 

Trust Retail and the Retail Trust will work together to help more retail workers access the support, advice and resources they need to protect their wellbeing and raise awareness of the challenges facing the sector’s workforce.

“This partnership will help us build on the progress being made to improve wellbeing across the retail industry by strengthening the support our charity can provide and helping us to reach even more people,” Chris Brook-Carter, chief executive of the Retail Trust, said.

The Retail Trust’s latest Retail People Index also found that 49% of distribution workers and 47% of store colleagues are at risk of leaving their jobs, and 40% of both groups are going into work despite feeling physically or mentally unwell. The report highlights the wider commercial impact of employee wellbeing, with changes in how colleagues feel increasingly linked to retention, productivity, presenteeism and absence.

“Partnering with the Retail Trust gives us the opportunity to contribute beyond technology and payments,” commented Mike Dotson, Managing Director at Trust Retail.

“By putting practical resources behind its work and engaging our own people in the partnership, we can help extend the support available to retail workers and raise awareness of the pressures many colleagues continue to face,” Dotson added.