Why occupational health is now a top priority

The coro­n­avirus cri­sis has squeezed the life out of so much we pre­vi­ous­ly took for grant­ed, at home and at work. Things have changed, irre­versibly. Many peo­ple express both a height­ened appre­ci­a­tion of life and respect for mor­tal­i­ty. But how does this trans­late to occu­pa­tion­al health? 

As organ­i­sa­tions begin to coax their employ­ees back to the work­place, the expec­ta­tion that employ­ers should sup­port the men­tal and phys­i­cal health of staff, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a work­place set­ting, has been dialled up in the past year. 

To instil con­fi­dence in employ­ees that a return to work is safe, many com­pa­nies pro­vide COVID-19 rapid lat­er­al flow tests, promise bet­ter ven­ti­la­tion, rig­or­ous clean­ing pro­grammes and gal­lons of hand sani­tis­er. But is it enough? Should busi­ness­es take more account­abil­i­ty for their work­ers’ health?

Accord­ing to employ­ee ben­e­fits provider Unum’s Val­ue of Help study, pub­lished in Decem­ber, 86 per cent of UK employ­ers have changed their approach to staff health and well­be­ing because of the coro­n­avirus sit­u­a­tion. 

More­over, 95 per cent of the 350 employ­ers sur­veyed revealed the pan­dem­ic has “impact­ed their need to make employ­ees feel more pro­tect­ed”, says Glenn Thomp­son, chief dis­tri­b­u­tion offi­cer at Unum UK. “Whether it is from indi­vid­u­als, com­mu­ni­ties or organ­i­sa­tions, 2020 has brought the val­ue of help and sup­port to the front of all our minds,” he adds.

Dr Robin Hart, co-founder of Com­pan­ion, which offers men­tal health sup­port tools, is pleased organ­i­sa­tions are show­ing a greater will­ing­ness to look after staff. “A lack of focus in this area his­tor­i­cal­ly has seen an increase in lost rev­enue and dimin­ished pro­duc­tiv­i­ty,” he says. “Atti­tudes have had to change in a very reac­tive way due to the pan­dem­ic. In real­i­ty, it’s accel­er­at­ed a process which would have played out any­way, even­tu­al­ly.”

Win-win scenario

Besides, sup­port­ing staff health and well­be­ing cre­ates a win-win sce­nario. Health and Safe­ty Exec­u­tive (HSE) data shows that in the 12 months to March 2020, when the first lock­down came into force, approx­i­mate­ly 828,000 work­ers, the equiv­a­lent of 2,440 per 100,000 peo­ple, were affect­ed by work-relat­ed stress, depres­sion or anx­i­ety. This absen­teeism result­ed in an esti­mat­ed 17.9 mil­lion work­ing days lost. In the pre­vi­ous year, the cost of work­place injury and ill health was cal­cu­lat­ed by HSE at £16.2 bil­lion.

“Nobody’s health should be worse at the end of a shift than it was at the start,” says Dr Craig Jack­son, pro­fes­sor of occu­pa­tion­al health psy­chol­o­gy at Birm­ing­ham City Uni­ver­si­ty. “If it is poor­er, then there is some­thing moral­ly, eth­i­cal­ly and legal­ly wrong in that work­place.”

He believes there is a new­found respect for occu­pa­tion­al health depart­ments. “The excel­lent, proac­tive work under­tak­en by many pro­fes­sion­als in prepar­ing COVID-secure work­places – assess­ing staff return to work­places, COVID screen­ing, test­ing, track­ing and trac­ing – will lead to peo­ple real­is­ing occu­pa­tion­al health is not just some­where to go to when you are ill and unable to work,” he says.

Jack­son acknowl­edges “sup­port­ing staff bet­ter than before does involve addi­tion­al time and costs”, but argues such spend­ing is a good invest­ment. This is backed by research from Deloitte, pub­lished last year, that esti­mates for every £1 spent by employ­ers on men­tal health inter­ven­tions, they gain £5 back in busi­ness val­ue.

“Not only is there a strong moral case for employ­ers to look after staff health, but it makes good busi­ness sense, too,” agrees Oliv­er Har­ri­son, chief exec­u­tive of Koa Health, provider of men­tal health pro­grammes. “Healthy work­places attract the best tal­ent. They also avoid the neg­a­tive impact of ill­ness on pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, mea­sured in staff turnover, absen­teeism and pre­sen­teeism.”

Wellbeing challenges

From a legal stand­point, organ­i­sa­tions have a statu­to­ry oblig­a­tion to pro­tect their staff from phys­i­cal and men­tal harm. How­ev­er, Ele­na Coop­er, employ­ment con­sul­tant at Dis­creet Law, reports that “a large num­ber of employ­ees are tak­ing advan­tage of what they per­ceive to be their employer’s duties around men­tal health”.

She asks: “We know a car­ing and sup­port­ive employ­er is a good employ­er, but where do you draw the line between being a prof­it-mak­ing enti­ty and a nan­ny state?” With the prospect of busi­ness­es hav­ing to afford time off to long-COVID suf­fer­ers in the com­ing months, if not years, it’s a per­ti­nent ques­tion.

Eth­i­cal and legal debates aside, organ­i­sa­tions face oth­er press­ing chal­lenges to improve staff well­be­ing. “One of the great­est bar­ri­ers is ensur­ing health­care sup­port tends to the needs of all who work with­in a com­pa­ny,” says Bob Andrews, chief exec­u­tive of pri­vate med­ical cov­er provider Benen­den Health. 

“There is often a dis­con­nect between what employ­ees want to see from a health and well­be­ing pro­gramme and what busi­ness­es offer. Also employ­ees are not the same and there­fore a one-size-fits-all approach is out­dat­ed and inef­fec­tive.” He advis­es using a range of tools, includ­ing men­tal health apps, as well as low-cost human man­age­ment.

Luke Bullen, chief exec­u­tive in the UK and Ire­land at Gym­pa­ss, which seeks to improve well­be­ing through exer­cise class­es, spots anoth­er issue. “One of the major chal­lenges for a post-pan­dem­ic work­force is going to be the hybrid work­place,” he says. “How do employ­ees ensure their well­be­ing strat­e­gy works just as well for those work­ing at their tables as though work­ing in the office?” Empow­er­ing staff to “tai­lor the well­be­ing offer­ing” is crit­i­cal, he sug­gests.  

Spurred by events of the last 12 months, occu­pa­tion­al health will surge in impor­tance in the com­ing years. “By 2025 I expect it to be avail­able any­where, any­time, thanks to dig­i­tal advance­ment,” pre­dicts Paul Shaw­cross, clin­i­cal lead of occu­pa­tion­al health ser­vices at phys­io­ther­a­py provider Con­nect Health. His com­pa­ny employs an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-chat­bot as a method of refer­ral that “triages the patient to the right sup­port for them, 24 hours a day, sev­en days a week”.

Whether it is bot ther­a­pists, well­be­ing apps or human pro­fes­sion­als, employ­ers need to pri­ori­tise occu­pa­tion­al health in the post-pan­dem­ic work­place. Sup­port, of any kind, is what staff tru­ly want and need right now.