Greg Baker

Mental Health in the Workplace

29 May 2005

One of those days, your whole week’s workload has just landed on your desk at once.

There doesn’t seem to be any way of prioritising the undulating pile of paperwork with

which you have been lovingly served. You go to the window for a sip of water, to calm

down, to think and take stock for a moment and a colleague is there badgering you for the

report that was due for completion on Thursday. You work through till late in the vain

hope you can complete the mountain of work – which of course you only partially

manage, go home, tiptoe past the sleeping family, microwave the dinner and lay in bed

waiting for the cover of sleep to take you away once more.

Although it sounds and indeed is extreme the picture above is not as unusual at all. A

recent Health and Safety Executive survey of 17,000 people showed that one in five was

suffering from stress at a level viewed as “very” or “extremely” stressful. Stress is now

the second most common cause of lost workdays and is the most common reason for

Incapacity Benefit claims by a factor of two to one and costs the UK a staggering 10% of

its GDP.

On top of this every year around two and a half million people in the United Kingdom

report suffering from an illness they believed was caused or made worse by their current
or past work. Of these around a quarter are related to mental health – most frequently

workplace stress.

One of the most effective long-term means of reducing office stress is achieved by

modifying the environmental stressors to reduce their negative impact on individuals.

From restructuring job roles so as to cause greater job security, to providing a better place

to work and room to get away from it all for a short while. These changes need

cooperation between the facilities manager and other company management staff on a

long-term and candid level.

With stress and mental health issues effecting over a quarter of employees each year and

with 13 million days lost in 2003/4 due to it facilities managers are in the ideal position to

provide the resources to relieve this burden. Ian Fielder Chief Executive Officer of the

BIFM said: “Stress is an critical issue and facilities managers can play an important role

in reducing its impact by ensuring a good working environment as well as carrying out

excellent compliance to regulations avoiding poor environmental conditions. The FM

industry has also invested research into mobile and remote working to consider the

impact of reduced travel arrangement and the considered benefits of flexible working.

The key issue facing all employers is the attraction and retention of key skills and its

must be recognised that facilities managers are fundamental in supporting this objective

through good practice, including stress management”.

How exactly to deal with stress in the workplace of course varies massively from place to

place but there are a few factors that run throughout the majority of businesses by

combining general good practice, with sound analysis to identify workplace and role
specific stressors many of the problems associated with stress may be relieved. This is

not however in any way easy to attain.

“The real problem is getting senior managers to see that there is a problem,” said Kate

Bawden of consultants Mercer Human Resource. She continued: “Senior managers tend

to be stress resistant, it’s part of what got them where they are and so they often have to

be persuaded that some people may be suffering from things they do not perceive as

troublesome”. Persuading senior management that there is a problem is half the battle, the

other half is getting the required resources and finance set aside to be able to implement

changes that maybe proposed. Bawden said: “It is vital that these people are persuaded to

put funds and resources into problem solving before finding out how such problems may

be solved”.

The next step in stress management is to assess the stress levels, while this may be done

via a stress audit, but however there are always problems with this method. “By

mentioning stress in the environment it raises awareness of the problem and you can get

people who never felt stressed before claiming they are stressed, or thinking they should

be stressed” she added. As such the audit needs to be conducted carefully as to not

disturb its results.

After assessing the problem it is necessary to interpret the data and implement changes

where possible to reduce the stress in the company environment. This may be impossible

in some areas of some businesses as in many roles stress is an in-built part of the job.

However with good work planning and by bring in sound stress reduction methods a

great deal can be achieved. “One big thing is persuading your staff to take their lunch
break; people really cannot work properly for eight hours without a break day in day out.

There are a lot of old fashioned methods of reducing stress that we gave up in the 80s

culture of work that if brought back sensibly could bring great benefits.” said Ms

Bawden. If measures such as this are implemented alongside good support availability

and an occupational health policy stress caused work loss could be reduced dramatically.

An excellent example of this in action is retail bank Abbey’s Great Place to Work

initiative aimed at dealing with stress at the bank’s busy call centre environment. The

company added respite rooms to its call centres fitted with video games and other

relaxation materials.

Abbey took measures to ensure that the respite rooms were also a work-free area were

staff may take breaks away from the work, as well as using them as a break-out space to

take a break after an overly stressful call. The company also ensured that if an employee

was using the room for a breakout reason the line-manager would be informed and some

support would be offered to the employee if needed.

Abbey also embarked on a work restructuring programme that lead to a clarification of

the information sources used by the employee, effectively reducing the work strain of

having to access customer information via two desktops to a single one. This had the

added benefits of providing more physical space for the employees and providing easier –

and thus less stressful – access to relevant data.

The company has also taken several initiatives to provide higher levels of autonomy and

control for staff over their work. Low levels of work control are linked with stress related

outcomes such as heavy drinking, distress and psychosomatic health complaints.

A number of work place stress causes are also beyond the ability of the company to

directly effect. Problems caused by competitors, customers and general economic

instability need a different approach to address. Provision of healthy lifestyle

programmes such as health clubs or gym vouchers and relaxation rooms are proven to be

effective at tackling these stresses.

With stress on the rise both as an issue and in the public’s awareness there has never been

a better time to put into place the measures to deal with its effects. The FM industry is in

an ideal place to capitalise this issue by becoming central to the management of stress at

all levels in the corporate structure. Although it will take a great deal of cajoling and

work implementing, the gains are potentially huge, both in pure financial terms and in

more general social terms. Unlike poverty, stress simply is never going to be history but

there is the opportunity to give it a good thump and make everyone the richer for it.

Box:

Dealing with environmental causes of stress recommendations.

• The physical workplace should be of a high standard.

• Natural light should be used where possible.

• Good ventilation should be provided where possible.

• Employees should have a say in planning and decision-making.

• A supportive working environment should be provided for those with mental

health problems.

• Roles should be clearly demarcated with defined responsibilities and expectations.

• Employees should be discouraged from working excessively long hours.

• There should be on-the-job support and mentoring schemes available.

• Flexible hours schemes should be introduced to allow for regular hospital check

ups.