Employers

How Jobs in Mind can support the employer

Jobs in Mind will work with the employer and employee to identify reasonable adjustments, phased return to work and provide on-going support to employers when supporting and working with an employee with a stress related/mental health condition.

How to deal with work-related stress

Tackling work-related stress is essential to ensure the wellbeing of both you and your employees and to safeguard the performance of your business.Stress can be particularly damaging for owner-managers and the self-employed. Though a degree of pressure can help you to perform effectively, excessive demands can reduce your productivity and make it more difficult to take important decisions.Stress can also undermine employees’ effectiveness, cause a rise in sickness absences and increase staff turnover. You have a legal responsibility to ensure your employees don’t become ill, either physically or mentally, because of work-related stress.This guide helps you identify and tackle possible causes of stress in your business – from excessive workloads and communication problems to insufficient training and poor management.

Why tackling stress in your business is important

The costs of neglecting stress in your business can be high. Stress is sometimes overlooked as a health and safety issue by small businesses. The unexpected absence of just one member of staff can affect productivity, and efforts to secure cover can be costly and time consuming.Stress can cause many workplace problems, including:

• High turn over of staff
• A fall in your productivity and that of your employees
• Unhealthy working relationships
• Poor decision making
• Low morale amongst staff
• An increase in mistakes which may in turn lead to more customer complaints
• Increased sickness absence

Stress often has a cumulative effect. If one member of staff becomes ill through stress, it places added pressure on those covering for them.A stressed manager may find it difficult to create a positive working environment and monitor stress levels in the organisation.It’s also important to tackle any stress you face as an owner-manager or self-employed person. This is often caused by working excessively long hours or from a feeling of isolation.

Your legal duty on stress

Employers have a legal duty to ensure employees aren’t made ill by their work. This includes taking steps to prevent physical and mental illness brought about by stress. These steps need not cost a lot of money and the benefits can be significant.You must assess the risks of stress caused, or made worse, by work as part of your overall health and safety risk assessment. See this guide on risk assessment – an overview.One of the best ways of assessing stress levels in your business is to carry out a stress audit. See the page in this guide on how to assess whether stress is a problem for your business.

Benefits of supporting staff stress related/mental health conditions

Your first step to improving mental health and wellbeing of people at work is to talk to staff so they become more aware of the issues that might have an impact on their wellbeing.Sometimes people do not know that healthy choices they can make, like eating a balanced diet, can protect their mental health in the same ways as their physical health.When someone does develop a problem, they may not recognise it as such or seek help at an early stage. Staff and employers will benefit from a greater awareness.A work culture where everyone is treated with respect and dignity and issues such as bullying and harassment are not tolerated will improve the mental well-being of employees. If you can promote such a culture you will see a reduction in sickness absence, grievance and discrimination claims, complaints and the incidence of mental health problems.If staff are more aware they will be more able to help themselves and be more sensitive to the needs of others. If you recognise the problems of colleagues early you can help them more effectively and give appropriate support.Jobs in mind aims to support the employer during the process of supporting an employee back to work.See the Line Managers' Resource for a practical guide to managing and supporting people with mental health problems in the workplace.

Supporting an employee with a mental health condition

Mental health problems

In practice, it can be hard to distinguish when ‘stress’ turns into a ‘mental health problem’ and when existing mental health problems become exaggerated by stress at work. The most common forms of clinically diagnosed mental health problems are depression and anxiety. Many of the symptoms are similar to those that people experience when they are under considerable pressure e.g. sleepless nights, loss of or increased appetite, increased used of alcohol, etc.; the key differences are in the severity and duration of the symptoms and the impact they have on someone’s everyday life.Usually a general practitioner (GP) will be involved in diagnosis and in offering treatment in the form of medication or talking therapies or a combination of the two.Information on the most common mental health problems and advice on what to look out for when considering a person’s well-being can be found on the Line Managers’ Web Resource.

More severe illnesses

It is important to remember that only 1 in 100 people experience the more severe illnesses. Those who do will have regular contact from their medical, social or other support network and an agreed plan should their condition deteriorate (this is often referred to as a care plan or Care Programme Approach CPA).Evidence shows that employment can be of great benefit, both to the employer and to the employee. The vast majority of people with mental health problems are treated by their GP and most of these people are capable of continuing to work productively.

Two key messages

Focus on mental well-being.

A holistic approach to promoting the mental and physical well-being of your staff will repay your investment many times over in terms of productivity, morale and creativity. By presenting the issue in terms of well-being you are also much more likely to overcome barriers around stigma and to achieve buying in from staff.

Engage with people

Dwelling on definitions and diagnoses is unlikely to be helpful as, too often, a diagnostic ‘label’ leads to preconceptions of what a person can – or cannot – do.The most productive approach is to talk to the person, get a clear understanding of what they can do, rather than what they can’t do and so understand problems or issues and work on the basis of the person’s capabilities. The way forward is to bring mental well-being within the boundaries of normal working life , rather than focusing on it as out of the ordinary and thereby something ‘different’ or stigmatised.A more comprehensive section on common mental health problems can be found on the Line Managers’ Web Resource.