Caring for Colleagues: Building a Culture of Care
Sickness absence in the UK is at its highest in a decade, with stress and mental health being a common cause for absence. In response to these figures, Rishi Sunak has unveiled plans to review the fit note system, claiming Britain suffers from a “sick note culture”. He has also voiced concerns about “over-medicalising” everyday anxieties with a mental health diagnosis. This fit note shake-up could see GPs stripped of the responsibility of issuing fit notes, which would pass to specialist work and healthcare professionals. Unsurprisingly, his comments have been met with contention, with many voicing concerns, regarding the Prime Minister’s attempt to trivialise the declining health of the British public.
The director of the NHS Confederation Primary Network, Ruth Rankine, said: “The Prime Minister should lead a national mission for health improvement, to shift the focus from simply treating illness to promoting health and wellbeing,” The comment was expanded on by the assistant director at the Health Foundation, David Finch: “Helping to keep people in good work and health for longer is an important part of supporting a thriving working-age population. Key to this is getting support to people quickly as their health starts to affect their ability to work.”
So, what is going wrong? Firstly, the impact of recent and ongoing global crises cannot be underestimated: Covid-19, war, economic uncertainty, and the cost-of-living crisis, to name but a few. Survey results also suggest that the continued squeeze on public spending and service cuts are having an impact.
Although many boardrooms acknowledge the need to tackle workplace stress, mental health, and well-being – definitive mental health strategy take-up is less than 20%. Wellbeing budgets remain relatively unchanged, with public and non-profit sectors more likely than private organisations to offer structured health and well-being initiatives. More research is needed to understand the causes behind the rise in sickness absence, delving deeper into the impact of health and wellbeing initiatives. A safe space in the workplace is necessary, where conversations can be had about underlying health and home/workplace struggles. This will only be achievable if management is well-trained to support their colleagues. Effective preventative and systematic strategies can then be developed to improve health, attendance, and employee engagement while decreasing presenteeism and leaveism.
In March 2022, a research article, “Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work in the UK: Current Legal Approaches”, was published by researchers at the University of Reading. It disputes the effectiveness of the current legal approach towards poor mental health in the UK workplace. The article suggests problems have arisen from the legal structures' failure to acknowledge and engage with problematic links between undertaking paid work while suffering from poor mental health. Currently, the legal framework uses a reactive tort law – that compensates for harm caused by the acts or omissions of others. This has positively encouraged the workplace to adhere to stricter safety procedures but inherently leads to liability avoidance by employers.
Organisations can actively avoid responsibility because blame is instead attached to an individual. Tort law also places the employee at a disadvantage because they must first expose their vulnerabilities to argue their case. This can have an adverse effect on positive outcomes when they return to work; in turn, this leads to employers actively avoiding employing people with poor mental health, or who are considered in an at-risk group for future mental illness. The article suggests the whole legal framework handling mental health in the workplace is “disjointed because it has evolved from a patchwork of provisions, each with different foundations, motivations, ambitions, and flaws. The need for a re-focus, and what this might entail, is considered, and the capacity of a model centred on addressing workplace mental health as a manifestation of broader notions of vulnerability is explored.”
Protective provisions against discrimination in the workplace on the grounds of disability have been in place since the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, strengthened by the Equality Act 2010 and the Flexible Working (Amendment), which came into force in April 2024. However, progress is slow, with change coming only once every 10 to 15 years. Also, enforcing these protections often falls on the vulnerable employees, who are perhaps unable to recognise or tackle failings by organisations responsible for adhering to these protective employee laws. According to vulnerability theory, human beings are inherently vulnerable, and it is not a character trait only attached to those perceived as weak. If we are all susceptible to episodes of vulnerability, access to resilience building must become a priority, so gaps in employment laws can be plugged – offering better protection.
Designing and developing a well-being guide is just the beginning of the process towards better health and well-being in the workplace. Implementing successful wellbeing management means first changing outdated attitudes and established habits. If potential problems are identified, a well nurtured wellbeing policy can improve morale, drive ascending engagement, and cultivate good health and wellbeing practice. Thriving workers means thriving organisations.
Leek United Building Society strategically transformed its approach to employee wellbeing included:
Elevating HR's Role: To ensure people strategies aligned with business goals.
Employee Input: Shaped initiatives around collegue needs.
Multi-Faceted Support: Addressed mental, physical, and financial wellbeing with internal policies, external platforms, manager training, and executive leadership.
Proactive Health Investment: Partnered with Bupa for comprehensive health screenings.
Workspace Improvements: Increased engagement and accessibility.
Outcomes
Improved Engagement: Scores exceed industry benchmarks.
Reduced Absenteeism & Improved Retention: Positive impact on staff presence and loyalty.
Business Benefits: Enhanced efficiency and positive cultural audit demonstrate a link between wellbeing and performance.
The HRologist Ltd takes a holistic approach to human resources and collate robust health and wellbeing in the workplace data, that separates important information from what is irrelevant. But what does this mean? The word ‘holistic’ is characterised by considering the whole, which is made up of lots of parts. ‘Wellbeing’ is a positive state of health and happiness, that considers social, economic, and environmental conditions. Holistic wellness includes physical, mental, and spiritual factors in pursuit of balanced, well-rounded health and happiness.
