Inspired by the findings of the Stevenson/Farmer 2017 “Thriving at Work” review, the CCLA Corporate Mental Health Benchmark has “been designed to encourage employers to be more open about what they are doing; to share good practice, encourage others, and to be open to investors, customers and potential staff about their mental health/wellbeing credentials.”
It evaluates 100 of the UK’s largest companies on how they are approaching and managing workplace mental health with the capability to improve the lives of around the 5 million adults either employed or contracted by them globally. It is hoped that understanding and comparing corporate practice on mental health will act as a catalyst for change and accelerate progress in managing employee mental health.
The 22nd survey published by the CIPD in partnership with Simplyhealth, explores absence and wellbeing practices in UK workplaces to offer employers and people professionals benchmarking data. In their conclusions to this year’s survey, they highlight that a key link in the employee wellbeing chain is the supportive role line managers play and that, “As a priority, organisations need to ensure their line managers have the confidence and capability to nurture trust-based relationships with those they manage ... To perform this role effectively, managers need the behaviours, education and skills they will only gain from receiving effective training, support and expert guidance.”
March saw the publication of the 3rd edition of this report by Deloitte, in which they make a series of recommendations that employers, leaders and organisations could consider to support employees’ wellbeing and mental health. In this latest edition:
- They look into mental health changes in the UK workplace amongst employees during the recent pandemic.
- They consider the consequences and costs for employers of poor mental health. Their estimated annual cost to employers of absenteeism, presenteeism and labour turnover was up by 25% since 2019. Encouragingly though, their financial analysis suggests that actions by employers to improve the mental health of their employees may generate an average return of £5 for every £1 spent.
- They seek to understand how the attitudes of employees to mental health have been affected by the pandemic and the implications this may have for their work.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) have published a practical guide to the law in relation to single-sex spaces, to help service providers make lawful decisions about any services they offer to women and men separately. The guidance “advises organisations such as hospitals, retailers, hospitality and sports clubs to put in place policies that are both legal and balance the needs of different groups.”
The CIPD recently carried out an evidence review into employee resilience which confirmed that people managers have an essential role to play in helping those they manage to be resilient. And that the responsibility should not just be put on employees to ‘toughen up’ and ‘be resilient’, indeed that manager behaviour affects team member’s resilience. This line manager’s CIPD guide offers practical advice for both their own behaviour, as well as for the key role they can play in supporting team members to be resilient.
These external resources were included in our Summer 2022 newsletter. If you would like future editions of our quarterly workplace wellbeing newsletter sent directly to your inbox, please sign up here.