It is widely acknowledged that the route to the UK’s financial recovery is via a re-energised, high performance business sector based on a solid infrastructure. Of course, businesses are run by people so their health and wellbeing, and those of the teams they lead, is vital not only to the organisations they run but also to the future success of UK plc.

Yet, research shows that business leaders and their teams are under more pressure than ever, leading to increased workplace stress, ill-health and greater business uncertainty.

The Work Foundation found that 10% of wage bill is spent by the average UK business managing the consequences of not managing their staff’s health, whilst the Centre for Mental Health reports that two in every five of employee sick days are due to mental ill-health problems.

A survey by King’s College and employment law firm, Speechly Bircham also shows that the health and wellbeing of staff ranks as less important than employer branding amongst senior HR professionals! So why are we not investing in protecting our best asset – our people?

At AXA PPP healthcare, we believe that a rebalance in focus is needed by putting health and wellbeing at work on the business agenda and to do so in a way that adds value to hard pressed companies across the UK.

This means looking at particular areas affecting wellbeing such as stress which can be triggered through increased workloads, a more pressurised commercial environment and difficult work relations.  The advent of online employee assistance programmes, e-counselling and social networks is making available more options to safeguard employee’s psychological health and wellbeing.

It also means putting in place preventive measures to help employees to manage unhealthy behaviours associated with obesity, such as smoking and lack of exercise, more effectively.

Of course business is good for Britain and, even more so, good health for business people is even better for Britain.

In order to explore the business case for managing mental health positively, Mind – the leading mental health charity for England and Wales – were responsible for the 2011 business summit entitled Taking Care of Business, in conjunction with AXA.

The purpose of the Taking Care of Business summit was to explore employer solutions for better mental health at work, share best practice, and agree on mental health actions for businesses to promote within their sector. In our second blog post on the summit (our first Taking Care of Business post is here), we’ll be looking at mental health in the workplace and coalition government policy, highlighting the recommendations that resulted.

Speaking at the summit, the Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud stressed that the government’s vision for mental health at work is holistic and wide-ranging, and includes welfare reform, the Work Programme, and the public health strategy’s commitments on employment. With the focus on getting people back into long-term work and also on preventing people falling out of work in the first place, the government’s aim is to move beyond the “rigid dividing line” that currently exists between mental and physical health.

However, there are ‘barriers faced by employers and staff in the current system of state support’, says the Taking Care of Business report. One of the most obvious barriers is that – while mental health problems are one of the biggest causes of sickness absence – less than one per cent of the Access To Work budget assists people with mental health issues.

Another problem for individuals and employers is that in many cases, people move from statutory sick pay on to ill health benefits without any intervention from the employer – meaning that people fall out of the work market altogether.

With such a large percentage of sick days lost to mental health problems – they account for between 36% and 44.6% of sickness absence – it’s imperative that new ways of managing mental health are considered. In the Health at work independent review of sickness absence carried out by Dame Carol Black and David Frost CBE, the authors state that one of the main things that needs to change is the way mental health problems are thought about: ‘A key challenge is to change attitudes and  destigmatize these issues’.

A key recommendation for the coalition from the Taking Care of Business summit relates to private health cover. The government, says the report’s recommendation, should ‘explore financial incentives’ to encourage prioritisation of mental health by employers. An example of this would be a ‘feedback incentive loop’ where lower health insurance premiums would be offered to employers with good mental health management training in place.

What do you think needs to change to make sure we have better mental health at work in the UK? Do the Health at Work review and recommendations go far enough? Let us know your views in the comments – we’d love to hear from you.

The word presenteeism is often used to describe the problem of people turning up to work while they’re ill. So, when employees present themselves for work rather than taking sickness absence, could it actually be detrimental for these workers and their organisation as a whole?

According to The Sainsbury Centre For Mental health, ‘Presenteeism accounts for 1.5 times as much working time lost as absenteeism and costs more to employers because it is more common among higher-paid staff’. However, as a 2010 study into sickness presence by The Work Foundation and AXA PPP states, not all workers with health problems will perceive themselves as being “sickness present” if their ill health doesn’t affect their ability to work.

So, why do people soldier on, even when they should be at home resting up? The report gives outlines some key reasons:

• Type and severity of illness
• Feeling under pressure from managers or the rest of the team
• Self pressure – workers who hold high standards for themselves
• Having no-one to cover workload when off sick
• Feeling under stress at work
• Being unable to rest at home due to family arrangements
• Concern about commission and pay
• Ability to adjust work e.g. a flexible working environment allowing for lighter tasks to be taken on when unwell.

In a recent HR Magazine article, Professor Gary Cooper of Lancaster University discusses the subject –under the plain-speaking headline Presenteeism is more costly than absenteeism> He argues that one of the main factors causing presenteeism is job insecurity, with people coming to work unwell and as a result providing ‘very little added value’.

And the ways to combat presenteeism? As Professor Cooper says, business needs to ‘overcome [workers’] fears of job insecurity’. There are several things business can do to help reduce these fears and presenteeism levels with them: communicating management expectations, offering employee assistance programmes and allaying staff fears through counselling, plus encouraging those who are ill to seek medical advice. These could all be ways to start a campaign against presenteeism.

Speaking in Personnel Today magazine, Chief executive of Alliance Boots’ Health & Beauty Division, Alex Gourlay, sums up the challenge for organisations in taking a wider view: “The cost of absenteeism is a relatively easy one for the business to focus on. But there is a bigger prize underneath”. How big that prize actually is, and how soon businesses will find it remains to be seen. Until then, the workplace could continue to see people in ill-health at their desks!

The recent Health at Work review – carried out by Dame Carol Black and David Frost CBE, and presented to Parliament in November sets out some possible answers for the future.

Providing an overview of the UK’s current sickness absence management system, the Health at Work review puts forward recommendations for better, fairer and more cost-effective ways to reduce the number of employees leaving work due to ill health.

One of the most far reaching changes recommended in the Health at Work review relates to changes in the fit note system. Currently a GP can advise that a patient is unfit for work, or that they may be fit for work if certain adjustments are made such as working hours or tasks performed. The problem here is that in many cases, GPs’ knowledge of the patient’s job is limited and recommendations can be made solely on job-specific criteria – for instance, someone whose job involves heavy lifting may not be fit for that task due to illness, but could perform within another capacity in their place of work.

In order to ensure that people have the best possible support in returning to work, Health at Work recommends that an Independent Assessment Service (IAS) is introduced. This IAS would take some of the burden away from GPs and provide in-depth ‘functional assessment and occupational health advice’ to help people back to work as soon as possible. This service would be available for people whose absence has lasted approximately 4 weeks.

In cases where an individual’s health condition means that their current job is incompatible, the recommendation by Black/Frost is for patients to be able to seek new suitable employment through a job-brokering provider, who will help match their skills and abilities to a job that is compatible with their health condition.

Another of the Health at Work review’s key recommendations is that expenditure by employers ‘such as medical treatments or vocational rehabilitation should attract tax relief’. While those who hold high-paying positions in larger organisations are more likely to have access to occupational health, less qualified employees and those from smaller organisations are at present ‘likely to be excluded from interventions to get them back to work’. Tax relief on these services could encourage more employers to offer them to staff, with the reduction in employer tax bills (approx £150 million) outweighed by a possible £250 million reduction in lost output.

The Health at Work review also recommends that tax exemption for employer-funded psychological support services (such as advice and counselling) be maintained, as these help employees deal more effectively with issues that affect absence rates and performance.

Speaking in HR Magazine, AXA PPP healthcare’s membership and people director Sonia Wolsey-Cooper believes the proposals ‘are a timely spur to HR professionals to review their approaches to managing health and wellbeing’, especially in light of the annual £37 billion cost of sickness absence. However, she warns that ‘fixing what’s broken’ is only part of the solution. Organisations need to take a ‘proactive approach to wellbeing, with clear objectives that focus on reducing health risks and managing health outcomes.

What are your views on Health at Work? Does it provide what companies need to help minimise sickness absence? Let us know in the comments.

The introduction to Mind’s Taking Care of Business report illustrates the scale of the challenges faced by UK business:

1 in 6 workers is experiencing depression, anxiety or stress – at a cost of £26 billion to the UK economy

The recession is increasing the strain on employers and, in turn, their workforces: MIND’s research found that 7% of workers in England and Wales had started taking antidepressants due to the effect of the recession on their workplace, and one in ten had visited their GP for help.

The introduction to Mind’s report goes on to describe mental health as ‘the elephant in the room at work’ with 41% of workers saying that ‘even stress is a taboo subject’. But in the current economic climate, Mind advises that workplace wellbeing initiatives – particularly those centred on mental health – are now a business necessity.

The recommendations made by Mind from themes that emerged out of the business summit include the following:

The government should keep the current tax-exempt status of Employee Assistance Programmes. Also, the government should explore ways to improve GPs use of the Fit Note.

All employers should ‘take steps to create an open, supportive workplace environment and facilitate disclosure of all mental ill-health’. All employers should also ‘introduce and promote an Employee Assistance Programme’.

Large employers should ‘prioritise employee mental health as a boardroom issue, on a par with physical health’.

Owner/ managers of SMEs should ‘promote positive mental health’ and regularly review levels of employee health and wellbeing’.

According to research carried out by Mind, over a third of workers are currently ‘stressed or very stressed’ by their jobs, causing a higher level of stress than ‘money worries, marriage, relationships or health issues’. Is mental health in the workplace an issue we can afford to ignore any longer?

Please let us know your views in the comments, or if you have any questions one of our experts will be happy to help.

In the next Taking Care of Business post, we’ll be looking at the coalition government and how it is addressing mental health in the workplace with the mental health strategy, the public health white paper and sickness absence review.

In ten years’ time employees could be paid for results achieved instead of hours worked, choosing when – and even where – they choose to carry out their duties. This is according to a new book entitled “Future Work: How Businesses Can Adapt And Thrive In The New World Of Work”. The book centres on research conducted by authors and business experts Alison Maitland and Peter Thomson, who draw some interesting conclusions: “employees are more productive if they have greater autonomy over where, when and how they work. Trusting people to manage their own work lives, individually or in teams, pays off”. They believe that a management shift from “controlling to enabling” will be essential as we move away from working models born in the industrial age to those more suited to our digital future.

Will the office disappear and be replaced by ‘work hubs’ – essentially a bank of hot desks for mobile workers? And is the nine to five on its way out, never to return? With flexible working and telecommuting becoming commonplace, neither of these future scenarios seem unrealistic. Time, of course, will tell. How do you see the workplace looking in ten years’ time?

A recent article in HR Zone on Steve Jobs notes the importance of Apple having ‘the right talent management strategy’ – by making sure they employed people who could ‘mirror the innovation and passion that Jobs brought to the organisation’. And the results were impressive enough for President Obama to say that ‘Steve was among the greatest of American innovators – brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it’.

So what actually is talent management, and how can other businesses put the Steve Jobs effect to good use?

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) describes talent management as “the systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement, retention and deployment of those individuals who are of particular value to an organisation” – people with “high potential for the future” and those “fulfilling business/operation-critical roles”. Talent management, then, isn’t simply about getting talented people into your organisation – it’s about retention and development within a “planned strategy”

Of course, not all companies are at the forefront of technology like Apple – but there are still things that we can all do to help make sure talent is managed in a progressive and effective way within an organisation. The CIPD’s talent management factsheet centres on aligning the talent strategy with the corporate strategy, approaching talent development with ‘fairness and consistency’, plus tracking and evaluation of the process. The simple things we can learn from Steve Jobs in addition to this are the importance of passion for staff skills, and the need for an inspiring company culture.

As the need to attract talented staff continues to be important, do you feel that talent management could play an increasing part in recruitment and retention in the future?

New rules for temporary staff also came into effect at the beginning of October, with changes to the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR). Perhaps the most important update for employers here is that agency workers will now be given the same basic rights as full staff members, after 12 weeks of employment under a temporary contract. Agency staff are now also entitled to the same pay and conditions as permanent colleagues, plus access to available staff facilities like a canteen, workplace crèche, and car parking.  More info on the new AWR is available in this guide from the Department for Business Innovation & Skills.

And finally, the other big change in workplace legislation recently is the new increase in the national minimum wage, from £5.93 to £6.08 – a move which ‘reflects the current uncertainty’ over the economy, according to the government’s business secretary.

What do you think of the new changes to workplace legislation –overdue improvements or compliance nightmare? Let us know in the comments…

Results from a recent survey carried out by the UK business education charity Young Enterprise suggest that there’s work to be done in this area, with 75% of the companies polled believing that education ‘is not equipping young people with the right skills’, while 59% “felt that the education system was poor at developing financial skills among young people”.

Asked which skills young people were missing, answers included ‘too many to list’, ‘literacy and numeracy’, ‘communication skills’ and ‘vocational skills’. Some of the UK’s biggest employers took part in the survey, which comprised of 700 000 respondents in total.

While there isn’t an immediate solution, Young Enterprise chairman Ian Smith believes that enterprise education should be on the national curriculum, with business staff being sent into classrooms to ‘help young people learn the work of work’.

What do you think business can do to help make sure tomorrow’s employees have the full set of skills required to perform in a competitive jobs market? If you’re an HR professional or the owner of a small business, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the survey’s findings, you can find the full survey results here.