Indeed, along with musculoskeletal disorders such as back pain, mental health issues have become the most common reasons for absence from work.
Research undertaken by EEF South, which represents employers in London and the South East, shows that against this backdrop many companies are now taking a new approach to handling stress in the workplace…and managing absence more effectively.
“There is increasing realisation that mental health issues are not only harmful for individuals, they also have a direct impact on the ability of companies to operate effectively,” says Professor. Sayeed Khan, EEF’s Chief Medical Adviser.
“Many businesses now see the benefits of developing a workplace environment that minimises the opportunities for stress, while at the same time implementing strategies that help individuals to return to work at the earliest opportunity.”
Prof. Khan encourages companies to look at ‘work organisation’ which is a constructive way of teasing out stresses in the workplace. In collaboration with the University of Nottingham, he has used his experience as a medical professional to help companies develop a structure for a work organisation assessment that focuses attention on critical areas.
These include:
- relationships with management
- relationships with colleagues
- employees' sense of being valued
- the physical environment within which employees work
- workload issues
“This work organisation analysis provides employers with evidence of where stress is most likely to occur,” says Prof. Khan.
“Where problems exist, we can then suggest interventions that may help, including formulating training programmes that will provide skills to identify and tackle stress-based issues. We have also developed a toolkit to help companies manage sickness absence, including stress absence more constructively.” [Managing Sickness Absence - A toolkit for changing work culture and improving business performance, from www.eef.org.uk]
Of course, there is more than a human and organisational cost to stress in the workplace. Since the landmark case of Walker vs Northumberland County Council in 1994, a significant number of employees have taken employers to tribunal claiming work-related mental health problems.
The financial penalties for companies can be significant because the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) quite clearly states that 'employers already have a duty to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of their employees at work... and to assess health and safety risks... these duties cover work-related stress.'
Employees complete a confidential online questionnaire which forms the basis of a report that identifies areas in need of improvement and areas that are going well. [on http://www.workorganisation.org.uk/]
The assessment provides an effective means of measuring stress levels in the workplace and is the pre-requisite for taking remedial action. The tool can quickly identify ‘pinch points’ in organisations, whether these relate to individual relationships, departmental tensions or broader workplace cultural issues.
“We really need to get to the point where the workplace is seen as a venue for health promotion – a healthy workforce is a productive workforce,” says Prof. Khan. “Hand in hand with identifying sources of stress, we need strategies that go beyond the traditional ‘sick note’ approach and help to bridge historical demarcations of occupational health, public health and the healthcare of individuals.”
Every year, about 160 million working days are lost to sickness at a cost equivalent to 10% of total payroll. Even slight reductions in this total will have a significant impact on productivity.
“We need improved workplace support to help people make better health choices, with greater emphasis on the prevention of work-related illness such as stress, on employer involvement in helping people manage health issues and also on return-to-work support,” says Prof. Khan.
“We need better relationships between employers and GPs, so that we move from a culture of ‘sick note’ to ‘fit note’ whereby the individual is assisted in returning to work at the earliest opportunity. At present, there is not enough constructive communication but this may change if the training in health and work for GPs, organised by the Royal College of General Practitioners, is rolled out nationally.
“We should aim for a high attendance culture, and that means demonstrating leadership from the top, training managers in early intervention, handling employees fairly, identifying and minimising areas of potential stress and communicating company policy over ill-health clearly. In this way we will build a workplace consensus founded on trust and the well-being of employees and make for a more successful and sustainable business.”