What can stop the snowball of long-term absence?

A study among more than 300 HRDs in the UK suggests three-quarters are struggling with rising levels of absence among their staff. 66% point to higher healthcare benefit costs; 34% to lower productivity. In 2023, CIPD figures showed that average sickness absence had jumped to 7.8 days per employee per year).

At the same time, 70% of the HRDs believed they were prepared and able to deal with the implications of rising absence. 22% wanted the government to spend more on the NHS to reduce waiting lists.

Getting proactive

In response, the study has pointed to the most common tactics being used by employers: the adoption of tailored wellness plans and increasing access to physical health resources (around a third of respondents); and investment into technologies to facilitate remote healthcare solutions (35%).

“These are serious and sensitive issues, impacting real everyday people, and they must be treated as such,” said Julia Turney, head of platform and benefits at Barnett Waddingham, the company which undertook the research. “If left unchecked, businesses may soon be dealing with faltering productivity, dissatisfied employees, and even financial losses.” She also highlighted the need for better data and ongoing tracking of wellbeing, health risks and needs.

Prevention mindset

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “There will always be reasons for people’s absence due to issues with physical and mental health. But there are better ways to think about and manage absence, and long-term absence in particular.

“What HR and workplaces can do is encourage a positive culture and a mindset when it comes to both physical and mental illness. That means working to understand the context and environment for absence, the root causes — such as unreasonable workloads and targets — that can turn into a cycle of higher absence levels, of people feeling unable to cope.

“EAPs should be playing a central part in the strategic planning of HR departments dealing with rising levels of absence, both in terms of insights into what’s happening across different parts of organisations, as well as how to address the underlying problems.”

Revealed: better management of mental health leads to business benefits

Mental health training for line managers could save companies millions of pounds every year by helping to reduce levels of employee absence.

That was the headline finding from my work with Dr Juliet Hassard of Queen’s University Belfast — research that has attempted to improve understanding of the role of managers in supporting the mental wellbeing of their teams, and address the tangle of workplace issues around stress, mental ill-health and long-term absence.

With so many sensitivities and implications for productivity, relationships and costs involved, it’s clear that UK employers need more insights into what works, an informed approach to wellbeing strategy and where and why to invest budgets. Reportedly, one in six workers experience mental health challenges. 12.7% of all sick days are due to mental ill-health, which is now also the most common cause of long-term absence. The estimated cost of poor employee mental health to British employers is over £50 billion annually. Practical, impactful ways of supporting mental wellbeing provide a major ROI.

We looked at anonymised survey data from several thousand companies in England collected between 2020 and 2023 by the Enterprise Research Centre at Warwick Business School as a part of a larger programme of research on workplace mental health and productivity. The survey covered mental health and well-being practices among the employers, including whether they offered mental health training to line managers.

The analysis suggested that employers providing mental health training for their line managers saw particular business benefits: there was improved staff recruitment and retention, indications of better customer service, and lower levels of long-term mental health sickness absence. (We used controls for the age, sector, and size of the companies to avoid skewed results).

So, equipping line managers with the knowledge, skills and confidence to better manage mental health at work appears to mean better business outcomes. And that’s important in terms of the business case for persuading employers to continue to invest in supporting the mental wellbeing of their workforces.

Follow-up research is now ongoing into what’s going on behind the headline: what kinds of training work best, what kinds of skills are being developed, and which are the most important?

Professor Holly Blake, School of Health Sciences at the University of Nottingham, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0306065

Our EAP: Leanne Matthew, HR partner at cable assemblies manufacturer GTK

We’ve seen how improving our internal culture in a number of ways has led to better employee wellbeing. An important platform has been making sure we’ve had an EAP in place — and the right kind of EAP for our workforce. Listening to actual needs and keeping up two-way communications on issues of health and wellbeing have been critical.

GTK recently changed its EAP because we recognised that it only focused on mental health but not any other areas. We also knew that uptake was low, a signal that the offering wasn’t meeting people’s needs. We take a holistic view of employee health and wellbeing and recognise that it goes beyond mental health. Physical health can sometimes be just as impactful, as good physical health can improve mental health, and vice versa. Then you have areas like financial wellbeing too. As well as offering professional advice and support, the EAP comes with above-and-beyond benefits, such as the offer of shopping vouchers, as a means of rewarding employee loyalty. We knew our previous EAP was good, but it wasn’t the best we could offer. Since we launched our new EAP, which covers all aspects of employee wellbeing, we’ve seen a 237.5% increase in uptake.

Early intervention is so important in making sure mental health issues are caught at stages when providing support is that much easier. Manufacturing is typically ranked in third place in terms of workplace stress (just behind hospitality and health and social care). We want our managers to be able to spot the signs of stress or poor mental health in their people. We’re building up a pool of resources for our managers — an employee handbook that includes a stress and mental health policy and a toolkit for managers, for example — to allow them to proactively support their people when they need it. They’re the first point of contact for their teams, so it’s important that they’re able to identify someone who may need more support. Sometimes, the hardest step a colleague can take is to open up about stress or mental health concerns. A lot of our managers report that their people come to them in the first instance when they’re experiencing difficulties, so that’s a testament to the environment we’re creating together.

Communications are at the heart of engagement and, ultimately, wellbeing. Whether that’s via regular one-to-ones, performance reviews, regular updates from senior management, or feedback on the EAP offering — it’s essential. If you don’t have it, your people might feel that they’re not important in your eyes.

What will the Employment Rights Bill do for wellbeing?

Employee health and productivity is clearly on the Government’s radar — as demonstrated by its high-profile plan to offer more access to weight loss injections as a means of getting people struggling with obesity back into work. But, as wellbeing professionals know, it’s critical that an employee health strategy is focused on dealing with causes of ill-health and not just symptoms.

Among the 28 reforms there are a number aimed towards increasing feelings of security. One proposal will remove the two-year qualifying period for protection from unfair dismissal; others ensure new recruits have the same rights from day one of their employment: access to paternity leave, parental leave, bereavement leave and statutory sick pay, as well as the right to ask for flexible working. People working on zero-hours or low-hours contracts will have the right to guaranteed working hours if they work regular hours over a defined period (with the suggestion that the qualifying period is set at 12 weeks). It was disappointing that announcements around the Bill have not included what would have been the most significant step forward: the planned ‘right to switch off’, to finally help address the impact of digital working and its pressures. Instead, there is expected to be advice and guidance rather than the kind of legislation introduced by Australia and Ireland.

Taking on people with more rights, who are even harder to move on if they’re not working out, isn’t attractive. So some employers might well want to cut back on recruitment plans, and be far more cautious when it comes to who they recruit — meaning higher workloads for established staff, more use of AI and automation. Employers might well also feel they have to get tougher on performance and outputs, to make sure they are getting a fair return on all the extra rights they’re offering.

Organisations need to get to the root of problems. How aware are most employers of the detail of their wellbeing landscape? The reasons their staff are absent or not performing, which teams or areas are struggling with workload pressures, with questions over management styles, problems with relationships, or escalating worries over finances. Is their training for managers to hold constructive, productive return to work, leavers and 1:1 sessions with their team? How can people best be supported so that they feel part of something?

It’s in this context that EAPs can be used as an early warning system. More wellbeing services and benefits clearly haven’t been the answer. A tailored approach, with OH and HR working closely with their EAP provider and accessing its bank of insights to identify real needs can lead to the tangible outcomes needed, lower levels of stress and more engaged and motivated people.

Karl Bennett, chair, EAPA UK (Employee Assistance Professionals Association), www.eapa.org.uk

Fines and penalties for ‘unhealthy’ employers?

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) wants to see regulatory action taken against employers who don’t provide ‘healthy’ work conditions, those that have “unacceptable” levels of employee ill-health. Measures would include fines and public exposure.

The argument comes as part of the think-tank’s work on health and prosperity in the UK, and concerns around the cost of benefit payments for people not working because of long-term health conditions. What’s the point of the NHS trying to make employees well, when they’re just going to be sent back into places that make them sick again? The pressure on employers, says the IPPR, would help deal with problems with obesity and rising numbers of cases involving anxiety and depression.

Penalise or incentivise?

In his response, Sir Cary Cooper has called for more incentives to help organisations create healthier workplaces rather than more regulations on punishment for employers.

“There are 2.8 million people in the UK who are out of the workplace with long-term sickness and 53% of them are off with stress, anxiety and depression. These are the leading causes of long-term sickness absence, not only in the UK, but in every developed country.

“We could do what the IPPR is suggesting and impose fines on companies, but I think using positive incentives would be better,” he said. “For example, the government could reduce national insurance contributions for employers that support a healthy work environment, or encourage health insurers to offer them lower premiums. This makes it a bottom-line issue for businesses.”

Open up together

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “Workplace wellbeing has become a major issue for the UK. It’s fundamental to national productivity, to the finances of the NHS, to society as a whole. That means we all have a stake in the wellbeing challenge, and need to be working together rather than looking to blame.”

“Workplaces are as much a source of rewards and fulfilment and motivation as stress and fatty foods. What’s important is honesty, open discussions and attention to the underlying causes of ill-health, physical and mental, and what might lead to unhealthy behaviours. EAP providers will increasingly be important partners in understanding landscapes of health and ill-health, raising awareness of what needs to be done, and introducing a more preventative approach.”

Campaign aims to get mental health patients back into work

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has announced plans for a scheme where ‘employment advisors’ will visit mental health patients in hospitals to help them back into work.

The scheme comes in the wake of figures released by think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which estimates that the costs of disability benefits to taxpayers are estimated to reach £63 billion by 2028. Coaches will help people with job applications, CV and dealing with interviews.

‘Dramatic results’

A trial of the approach, said Liz Kendall, had produced “dramatic results” in terms of returns to the workplace — and will help address the UK’s issues with its population of ‘economically inactive’ people (21.8% of 16-64 year-olds).

But mental health charities aren’t convinced. “It is ridiculous to try and turn a hospital, a place of care and support into a business setting,” said Mikey Erhardt at Disability Rights UK. “It is hugely inappropriate to be considering subjecting people who experience mental ill-health and distress to a CV check-up.”

Back to employers

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “While we know that getting back to work provides important routines, rewards and a supportive social environment for most people, it’s not the solution to mental health problems in itself. The obvious reality is that work involves its own stresses and challenges.

“In other words, the Government needs to keep in mind that the greater challenge is for employers and their HR and wellbeing teams. Both in providing the right support and environment for returning workers, and to help maintain the balance of challenge and wellbeing for its staff, keeping them in work in the first place.”

Updated statement concerning the BBC File on 4 allegations of 12 July 2024

EAPA UK remains steadfast in its commitment to upholding the highest standards of practice in Employee Assistance Programmes. We ensure that our members adhere to our rigorous Standards and Code of Ethics. While we are deeply concerned about the BBC’s allegations against one of our members, we have temporarily paused our investigation to ensure more detailed consideration is given to our investigative process. We will resume the investigation promptly, conducting a thorough examination of the allegations and publishing our findings and conclusions in due course.

Can 15 minute desk breaks protect employees from poor mental health?

Research studies released in time for World Mental Health Day among 26,000 desk workers around the world has highlighted the relationship between time spent at a desk, stress and impact on mental health.

One survey by ASIC, the sportswear manufacturer, confirmed that the longer workers are inactive at their desks, the more wellbeing scores fell; another study showed that stress levels rose and mental wellbeing scores declined after two hours of continuous desk work — and after four hours, stress levels increased by 18%.

Empty desks

A follow-up study by a researcher at King’s College London, looking at the mental wellbeing of 80 office workers from countries around the world, has suggested that 15 minutes of movement helped to reverse the effects of long periods of desk work. The ‘mental state’ of staff was seen to improve by 22.5%. A daily desk break for one week was seen to lower stress by 14.7%, and improve productivity by 33.2%.

As part of the #deskbreak campaign, employees are being encouraged to post images of their empty desk onto social media streams.

No silver bullets

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “Desk breaks are a sensible way of mitigating the impact of long periods of sitting in front of a screen — a practical means of expelling the stress that can build.

“As with any wellbeing tactic, like yoga sessions and healthy snacks, they can only ever be one part of a response to the issues. It’s important that HR, and employees themselves, aren’t distracted by the idea that a single initiative is ever a solution. Employee mental health can only ever be supported effectively by ongoing attention, through listening and understanding.”

Why is there disillusion with wellbeing perks?

When Investors in People (IIP) surveyed more than 1,000 employees and 500 HR decision-makers, they found they rated flexible working hours and a positive workplace culture far above wellbeing perks such as subsidised gym memberships, meditation apps and fruit baskets. 90% said flexibility was the most important factor in determining their sense of wellbeing.

There’s a gap in the perception of the value of wellbeing perks between HR and staff themselves. Only 27% of staff thought schemes like stress management classes and wellness advice apps were useful. Meanwhile, around 72% of HR believed a perk like gym membership was valued, when 59% of staff said they had never even taken up the opportunity.

Treat causes not symptoms

HR need to stop focusing on symptoms, such as stress, and be thinking more in terms of addressing root causes such as excessive workloads, long hours and difficult workplace cultures.

“That’s not to say that the more tangible wellness benefits are pointless – they are still used and valued by many employees,” said Paul Devoy, chief executive of IIP, “but they must be underpinned by a strong culture of wellbeing.”

EAP as early warning system

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “The real challenge for HR is understanding the changing landscape of issues and needs across an organisation — where teams are struggling with workload pressures, with questions over management styles, problems with relationships, or escalating worries over finances.

“More and more different wellbeing services clearly haven’t been the answer. A tailored approach, with HR working closely with their EAP provider and accessing its bank of insights to identify real needs can lead to the tangible outcomes needed, lower levels of stress and more engaged and motivated people.”

Updated statement from UK EAPA concerning the BBC File on 4 allegations of 12 July 2024

UK EAPA continues to be concerned regarding the allegations made by the BBC regarding one of its members.

While we recognise the latest report alleges that the BACP have suspended the voluntary accreditation aspect of their membership, their investigation is ongoing and therefore UK EAPA will not be making any comment on the current action taken by the BACP.

UK EAPA are close to concluding our own investigation around the allegations and hope to provide an outcome within the coming days.

UK EAPA continues to promote the highest standards of practice and the continuing development of employee assistance programmes (EAPs) in the UK, by ensuring that members adhere to our Standards and Code of Ethics.