Stress is often dismissed as a sign of weakness. Roz Sanderson, sub-editor for SHP, argues that not addressing the issue is a shortsighted approach.
By Roz Sanderson
Our article on stress sparked a heated debate on SHPonline last week, with opinion split down the middle.
There are those who think that employers should be doing more to address this issue, while others consider those who suffer from stress as “refusing to face up to the realities of life”.
This latter comment and a few that followed, describe those who suffer from stress as “weak” and anti-stress programmes as “mollycoddling”.
These comments only serve to reinforce the stigma attached to mental illness and leave people afraid to discuss their mental wellbeing for fear of being treated differently.
While health and safety professionals focus a lot of their efforts on protecting the safety of employees, mental wellbeing can often get left by the wayside, and when it is not addressed, it affects the business as well as the employee.
As SHP recently reported, a fifth of employees are taking time off due to stress, which is costing the economy billions.
In addition to absence figures, which are relatively easy to monitor, there is presenteeism — coming in to work when you’re sick — which, according to a 2010 report from the Work Foundation and Axa PPP, could match or account for one-and-a-half times more working time lost than the cost of sickness absence.
Today (27 November) I attended RoSPA’s Occupational Safety and Health Congress in London. Speakers Ian Barr, wellbeing advisor for Airbus Operations Ltd and Lizz Lambert, clinical coordinator for Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP) talked about acting on mental health absence.
In a nutshell, Airbus looked at the impact of mental ill health on the workforce and, deciding that their absence rates for mental health were too high, made changes to the way the company dealt with it.
In partnership with CWP, Airbus introduced an early intervention model and developed a holistic approach to mental health support, which encouraged people to come forward if they had a problem.
They introduced a support network within the company so that those with an issue could be seen quickly and easily during work hours.
By addressing the issue head on and running campaigns around mental ill health, Airbus have reduced the stigma surrounding mental ill health and made it something that can be discussed openly and honestly.
Mental health charity, Mind, which has a whole host of resources on addressing mental health within the workplace, has developed a three-pronged approach to help employers manage mental health:
1.promoting wellbeing for all staff;
2.tackling the causes of work-related mental health problems; and
3.supporting staff who are experiencing mental health problems.
Mind encourages employers to embed mental health in induction and training. By introducing the issues surrounding mental health early on, the company can challenge myths and prejudices and educate employees about the support available.
The charity also focuses on promoting wellbeing through top-down leadership — employees take cues on how to behave from leaders. If management openly addresses mental ill health they can raise awareness and promote discussion around mental wellbeing.
There seems to be a school of thought at the moment that stress is just part of the job, and that actually, if we’re not stressed perhaps we’re not working hard enough.
How far does this go? Stress is just one aspect of mental health. If an employee is depressed, suffering emotional strain outside of work, having suicidal thoughts, or self harming is that also another side effect of going to work? I would hope not.
Health is just as important as safety.
What makes us susceptible to burnout?
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
Roz – good follow up to the article and debate of last week. I could not agree more that we all need to do whatever we can to address the stigma attached to mental ill health and I too view some attitudes to mental ill health as being unhelpful and as contributing towards the continuing stigma. Such attitudes perpetuate a cycle of people suffering from stress, not being able to seek help and becoming more stressed. As Mr Bevan notes, stress is relative and, while the events Mr Wiggin uses to illustrate his point are terrible, to deny that anybody… Read more »
I was once told I didn’t get paid enough to get stress.
I suffer from stress and it affects my physical wellbeing in the form of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. This too is seen as an excuse rather than a genuine condition. I agree that it is an insult to call those who sffer from stress, ‘weak’.
Regrettably it is not surprising that a comment suggesting our nation has become a load of wussies has stirred professional health and safety practitioners to assume that some commentators do not care about those who suffer stress. Firstly I point out that this comment was to draw attention to the difference between what we in this country consider stress and that which some Filipinos are suffering every minute of the day. Stress has so many degrees of intensity that it is a disservice to those that suffer to lump them all together. Secondly your initial report was headed “a fifth… Read more »
Labelling stress suferers as weak is extremely short sighted. Like most ‘not easily quanitifiable’ issues most sufferers are genuine & a few milk it. Being one of the genuine ones being called weak just adds insult to injury.
To compare individuals in this country suffering stress to those in other countries, detracts from the main tenet of the argument. Stress is a relative concept and is based on the individual (the same as poverty). The debate about the rise of mental illness in this country, must be examined in relation to how we live and work in the twenty-first century. A transport infrastructure that is at breaking point; a long-hours culture; bankers greed that has caused financial uncertainty and a 24 hours working culture. In terms of management theory, we will have to move from the ‘command an… Read more »
I agree BJ, stress is relative, and I think it’s important to focus on changing the things that we are able to control.
I’d be interested to hear of other case studies – like the Airbus one I mentioned in my article – where companies have successfully put a programme in place to tackle mental health issues in the workplace.