The last few years have seen significant strides made in the sphere of mental health at work. But will 2024 be the year that comprehensive workplace mental health support becomes more commonplace? As we bid the previous year goodbye and move into 2024, the Covid-19 pandemic, national lockdowns and enforced working from home fade...
IOSH: people-focused work culture key for mental health
The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has reiterated its belief that a people-focused work culture is key to reducing and preventing work-related mental health problems. The leading professional health and safety body spoke out after the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published their annual statistics on work-related ill-health and workplace injuries for...
Frontline staff most likely to face work-related violence
Working with the public can now be identified as one of the biggest risk factors for work-related violence. Workers in public-facing sectors such as retail, public transport and healthcare have reported frequent and sometimes very serious abuse in recent years. In fact, the British Retail Consortium have reported that violence and abuse against their...
HSE statistics reveal 2 million cases of work-related ill-health
Annual work-related ill-health and workplace injury statistics published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) this week show that almost 2 million British workers are suffering from work-related illnesses. The HSE’s annual statistics for 2022-23 also reveal that around half of reported cases of work-related ill-health are still due to mental health problems. The...
Stress: IOSH poll finds its an issue for majority of workers
A recent poll conducted by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) found that the majority of workers experienced stress in their job, but over half would not feel comfortable asking for support in the workplace. IOSH conducted the snap social media poll to mark International Stress Awareness Week last week (30th October...
Stress linked to third of social care sick days
New research has found that just under a third of sickness absences among social care workers are linked to stress and poor wellbeing. Data collated by the British Psychological Society (BPS) reveals that 30% of the 500,021 sick days taken by social workers were due to mental health issues such as stress and work-related...
HSE campaign tackles work-related stress
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched its Working Minds campaign to help employers and workers prevent work-related stress. Britain’s health and safety watchdog is working with a number of partners, including IOSH, ACAS and Mind, to bring together a range of tools and support to help people tackle work-related stress and promote...
Workers feel under pressure to hide mental health struggles
A survey has found that many UK workers feel under pressure to hide their mental health struggles and “put on a brave face” at work as the government encourages them to head back to the office. The survey of more than 2,000 people, commissioned by online healthcare provider Lime Insurance, found that just over...
Aviva reducing office space in favour of permanent home-working
Investment company Aviva has announced that it will be closing many of its offices across the UK and allowing staff to work from home as standard practice. Aviva currently employs 16,000 people in the UK and sought to assure that the changes they were making would not amount to job cuts and that staff...
How to protect home workers during Covid-19
As hundreds of thousands of workers continue to work from home in line with government guidelines during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has updated guidance for protecting home workers. Employers have the same health and safety responsibilities for home workers as they do for any other workers. The HSE explains...
More than half of lost working days due to mental ill health, HSE says
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has released its annual workplace injuries and ill-health statistics for Great Britain. The statistics, compiled from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and additional sources, revealed that more than half of the working days that were lost as a result of work-related ill-health in 2019-20 were due to mental...