CBI survey: mental health is a priority at work

I’ve just stumbled across the Confederation of British Industry’s 2011 absence report.

The CBI report is interesting reading because of its scope – the respondents employ over one million people in total – and because it represents how employers see the workplace.

I was particularly interested in the results for non-manual labour. Employers were asked to list their top causes of short-term absence:

• Minor illnesses (colds etc): 98% of employers
• Migraine/chronic headaches: 47%
• Non-work related anxiety/stress/depression: 46%

An interesting point about the report is that – unlike other causes that I could see - anxiety, stress and depression were divided into work and non-work causes, with work-related mental ill health listed at 24%.

I would be curious to know how employers make this distinction. For  a variety of reasons – not least its perception as a weakness – employees are likely to underreport workplace stress. The results of the Labout Force Survey suggest that mental ill health accounts for about 35% of illnesses caused or made worse by work, a distinction which shows that work and home can aggravate as well as cause people to be made unwell.

In terms of longer-term absence (20 working days or 28 calendar days or more per year) the biggest cause of absence were:

• Non-work related anxiety/stress/depression (61%)
• Cancer (41%)
• Musculoskeletal disorders (31%)
• Work-related anxiety/stress/depression (29%). 

What to make of the results?

The employer view accords with the DWP survey of employees that ‘Depression, bad nerves or anxiety’ were the main causes of employee ill health. It also compares closely with other measures of health at work such as the annual survey of GPs, which puts mental health at 57% of all absences. Outside of common colds, mental ill health is the leading cause of absence at work.

The high rate of long term absence is also in line with the findings of the Centre for Mental Health that someone with depression or anxiety is likely to be absent on average for 19 days a year, more than double the national average. Stress is a trigger for depression and anxiety, and prevention and early intervention are therefore key strategies to keep employees in work.

The report found that 89% of employers operated some kind of stress management activity:

• Counselling: 89%
• Occupational health: 81%
• Flexible working: 69%
• Regular risk assessments: 52%
• Job redesign: 44%
• HSE management standards for stress: 36%
• Training: 35%

While this might look encouraging, the fact that only 36% of employers use the Management Standards is worrying.

A 2009 study into the Management Standards found they were ‘associated with increased job satisfaction, decreased job-related anxiety and depression and lower witnessed errors/nears misses.’ They are in fact the primary tool to prevent work-related mental ill health, while services such as counselling are more akin to an ambulance, necessary but not something you want to rely on.

The role of managers is perhaps accepted by employers, which identified day-to-day management as key planned areas for future activity. As the CBI report concludes, ‘wellbeing policies do not need to be expensive. But it is important for employers to consider what approaches are likely to yield the greatest benefits for their particular workforces.’

Rather than investing willy-nilly in wellbeing programmes, employers would be best served by carrying out a Management Standards survey first. In addition to identifying where to focus interventions, it would also provide benchmark data to monitor improvements.