While many organisations are implementing what she calls a “basket of interventions”, in the hope that yoga classes and employee assistance programmes or Mental Health First Aid training will help de-stress their staff, Black believes these are introduced without any data-backed insights into the problem they’re trying to address, nor followed up with research on whether they are working.
So data and measurement is one of three critical elements that Black, a speaker at Utility Week’s forthcoming Health, Safety & Wellbeing Conference who is currently undertaking a fourth government review on drugs and violence, advises employers to tackle if they are serious about addressing rising levels of work-related stress and ill-health. If an organisation’s board or governing body starts to receive regular reports of staff absenteeism, presenteeism or turnover, then the issue is instantly placed on a par with financial reporting, or any other form of performance measurement, creating a spur to action.
“Organisations usually don’t have a clue,” Black tells Utility Week. “If you don’t have data and knowledge about the organisation and haven’t consulted staff on what they’d like, how do you think it will make a difference? If proper data on the health of employees is considered by the board, they nearly always respond – just as they respond to financial data.”
The other two must-haves, she argues, are an open culture around mental health, disseminated down throughout the organisation from leadership level, and training line managers in mental health and stress awareness. Although Black says she does not know the utility sector well, she gives honourable mentions to Thames Water and Anglian Water Services for their commitment to corporate wellbeing strategies.
As Black is the first to admit, employers have improved their performance on staff wellbeing in recent years. “People genuinely want to do the right thing, it’s not the same problem as we had 10 years ago when people didn’t want to talk about mental health,” she notes.
However, she believes that good intentions and anecdotes have substituted for robust data and empirical evidence of what works. And while that’s true at an organisation level, it’s also true at a national scale and on a policy level.
“The truth is we don’t have any proper trials that have been conducted scientifically to tell us what the best thing is, so we tend to go on the basis of best practice. It’s not an area that social scientists have had an interest in. I’d love to see some proper work done by companies in association with an academic department, or the National Institute of Health Research or a research council.”
One specific area where research could build an empirical evidence base is the Mental Health First Aid programme. Two 2017 reports, by the Health & Safety Executive and a team of academics sponsored by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), both highlighted that while the training undoubtedly benefited those who undertook it, there was no evidence that it had a beneficial impact on organisation-wide levels of mental health.
As Black says: “People are endlessly training mental health first aiders, and genuinely thinking that these people will have the desired effect. But we simply don’t know if that’s the case. Companies are meaning to do well, they hope and believe this will be a good thing to do. But It’s a classic example of where you would like to see a proper study.”
Objective data would also allow companies to take a differentiated approach to workforce needs, recognising that different staff groups will respond better to different interventions, such as mentoring, or financial literacy support. “People put in interventions without thinking it through. Who are the most vulnerable members of the workforce, is it the young workers, or the middle aged women with caring responsibilities, or people with health problems? If you don’t know, you’re not using the resources you’ve got well,” she suggests.
Another suggestion is aimed at the sector’s occupational health and occupational hygiene teams, who are focused on monitoring and managing the “classic” workplace risks: hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS), hearing loss, contact dermatitis, and musculoskeletal disorders. Black would like to see these specialised practitioners embrace a more general role.
“Occupational health is fine and necessary, but it doesn’t address all the problems. My feeling is they should have expanded their area to focus more on wellbeing and mental health in the workplace. HAVS is important, but it’s not the kind of big-ticket item that stops people from working.”