Health and Wellbeing at Work – some useful tools

According to a recent survey from PwC, health and wellbeing issues are affecting employees’ ability to carry out their day-to-day roles.

2000 UK workers, from junior level through to managing directors, were surveyed about their health and wellbeing at work –

• A third (34%) said they are affected by health and wellbeing matters with the most common being anxiety, depression and stress
• Almost a quarter (23%) did not think their organisation takes employee wellbeing seriously
• More than half (54%) work for organisations who do not offer health benefits e.g. counselling, health screening or subsidised gym memberships
• Nearly two fifths (39%) have taken time off or reduced their responsibilities because of their health
• Of those two fifths, 39% of them did not feel comfortable discussing the issue with their employer

In the light of these findings, we thought it might be helpful to present a round-up of some of the articles and resources on our website together with the training courses we can provide to help individuals and management tackle health and wellbeing at work.

Health and Wellbeing at Work Tips

There are many stress management tips on our site, we encourage people to have a browse and discover what works best for them.  We would also highlight our series of 6 short articles looking at ‘How to Switch Off After Work’.

The survey also highlighted that almost half those surveyed believe technology can play a part in improving their wellbeing and said they would be open to using an app.  Our page “Using an app to boost resilience, reduce stress or improve mental health” lists a selection to help get you started.

Questions and Answers to concerns regarding Health and Wellbeing at Work

Some of the articles in our Ask the Expert series may be helpful, for example:

• “How can we make flexible working succeed at senior level?“
• “I’m worried about a colleague’s mental wellbeing“

Resilience resources

We have many practical resources which include article and videos on the topic of resilience, including –

A 3-part video series looking at resilience at work

How to develop team resilience

Micro-steps to resilience

A focus on mental health at work

We regularly add to our mental health in the workplace articles for both individuals and managers –

• Why mental health and mental illness are interrelated
• The stigma of mental illness
• Managing mental health at work: Conversations
• Suicide Threat : Do you know what you would do?

External Resources

We have also created pages of useful resources that we discover during our work in each of our training areas –

• Resilience Resources
• Stress Management Resources
• Mental Health Awareness Resources
• Equality and Diversity Resources
• Bullying Awareness Resources
• Wellbeing at Work Resources
• Mindfulness Resources

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) developed the Stress Management Standards some years ago.  If not managed properly these 6 key areas of job design can lead to poor health and wellbeing, lower productivity and increased sickness absence.  The HSE website gives full details about the standards, as well as statistics, case studies and other resources to help organisations deal with work-related stress.