January 18, 2012
In today’s Telegraph , there was a worrying story about an employee who had allegedly been made redundant for disclosing to his employer that he was experiencing feelings of depression. In a world where technology and social media is the norm, it’s hardly surprising that the employee took to twitter to share his experience, along with his dismissal letter! Within hours he had received thousands of tweets supporting him and offering advice. This is obviously an unacceptable way to treat someone suffering from depression, but I’m not at all surprised that this scenario has come to light and the power of social media may very well surface similar stories in the coming weeks and months.
Given that around 1 in 6 people now suffer, or will in the future suffer, from a common mental illness (e.g. depression, anxiety and stress) it is astonishing that the stigma of mental ill health is still with us. As well as all the high profile cases we hear about, there are so many TV programmes, films and other media highlighting the problem and, indeed, its treatment, that it’s hard to imagine this episode could have occurred in our times. But unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Even though many more people experience mental health issues and access to support is much better than it was a decade ago, there is still a concern about taking people on who have had mental health problems – or dealing with them appropriately if they are already in employment. Sure, we still need more support for people with mental health conditions, but it is out there and there’s no excuse for this particular employer’s response.
And yet when it comes to physical health issues there seems to be much more sympathy. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in 1853: “how prompt we are to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our bodies; how slow to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our souls!” Given the troubled times we are all going through in this severe and long lasting economic crisis, we are going to see more people who are unable to cope and who succumb to mental health problems, albeit treatable conditions. It would be unacceptable, and unsustainable, to dismiss everyone who said they had a mental health issue – for example, what would have happened if the Lloyds Chief Executive had been treated this way when he admitted struggling with similar issues?! In order to reduce the stigma of mental health issues, employers need to be made aware of the help available to employees who may be suffering this way, as well as the importance of supporting their psychological well-being as part of the way they do business.
We need to invest more in this growing societal issue, in terms of identifying and treating it, or better still working to prevent it in the first place. Otherwise, as Mark Twain put it, “if you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got”. That is not good enough for the many thousands who are suffering or the society in which we all live.
1 Comment | 
health, Mental health, Redundancy | Tagged: Depression, health, mental illness, redundancy, Telegraph, twitter, unfair dismissal | 
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Posted by Cary Cooper
October 14, 2011
This week I attended the World Economic Forum in Abu Dhabi, where I was a member of the Global Agenda Council on Health and Well-Being. The ‘great and the good’ from all over the world were there to explore the burning issues of our time, including the dire global economic crisis, poverty, sustainability, water shortages, social networking, ethnic tolerance, leadership and climate change. Even though the academics, business leaders, politicians, non-governmental and global gurus were there to explore their particular area of expertise, they all understood the impact of these challenges on the individual human being. There was a real concern for the quality of life of individuals, families, communities, businesses and populations on every continent.
Although these discussions can’t solve all of humanity’s problems, they can at least explore the possible alternative solutions, their costs and benefits, how they might be achieved and the likely scenarios for the future if we don’t deal with them. It is wonderful to see people from all corners of the world coming together to try and understand not only the global challenges but also the different problems we are facing, from the under-developed to the developing to the developed worlds. WEF may be perceived as a talking shop but it does achieve some good, and helps to drive global change on what some may think are intractable problems. This is a slow process but profound change always is.
Leave a Comment » | citizenship, Community, economy, health, Leadership, Uncategorized, Well-being | Tagged: climate change, ethnic tolerance, Global Agenda Council, global challenges, global economic crisis, Leadership, poverty, social networking, sustainability, water shortages, WEF, World Economic Forum | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
October 10, 2011
World Mental Health Day
Today is World Mental Health Day and the wealth of coverage around this is very encouraging. The inclusive nature of a global event means we can really get as many people as possible thinking about the subject – from individuals, to organisations, governments and NGOs. The success of this is demonstrated in a small way by the popularity of #worldmentalhealthday on Twitter!
The official theme this year is ‘Investing in mental health’, but I think there are actually three key strands that seem to stand out in discussion:
The first is directly linked to the official theme, and is concerned with ensuring there are adequate resources for treatment and care of mental health patients around the world. This will mean very different things in different contexts, for some countries it will be basic provision of trained mental health professionals, while for organisations it might mean reviewing the business case for support in this area.
The second is to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues. Although it’s something that will affect many of us at some point in life, lots of people are still unwilling to speak out and ask for help. The Ministry of Defence’s ‘Don’t bottle it up’ campaign is a great example of action in this area.
Finally there are some important considerations for individuals around taking a pro-active, preventative approach to mental health. We look after many other aspects of our health without even thinking about it; brushing our teeth, eating well and taking exercise are all preventative activities which ward off physical health problems. But there are very few people who do the same for their minds! I suspect this is due in part to a lack of understanding of what can be done in this area. Mindapples is one scheme that is raising awareness of this using its ‘5 a day for the mind’ model, while at Robertson Cooper we’ve made our i-resilience tool free, to try and encourage people to develop their personal resilience.
In keeping with the spirit of the day, please comment below if you have any other free resources or stories to share!
1 Comment | Guest Blog Spots, health, Personal Resilience, Well-being | Tagged: #worldmentalhealthday, Ben Moss, Don't bottle it up, i-resilience, mental health, Mindapples, Ministry of Defence, preventative, pro-active, Robertson Cooper, twitter, World Mental Health day | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
July 13, 2011
There’s no doubt we’re getting better at supporting mental health at work in the UK, but the figures are still shocking: The Centre for Mental Health report that 91 million days are lost each year due to mental health problems and the total cost to employers is a staggering £26 billion a year. With one worker in six experiencing depression, anxiety or problems relating to stress at any one time, mental illness has now become the largest category of occupational ill-health. (Source: The Centre for Mental Health)
With many organisations still governed by serious financial constraints and austerity measures, reducing the costs of staff sickness absence and driving up productivity remain firmly on the agenda. We also know that work is good for both physical and mental health and well-being, and whilst people with mental health problems have the highest levels of unemployment among any disabled group, they also have the highest ‘want to work’ rate (source: rethink). The challenge is huge.
So it’s always great to see new initiatives emerging to help tackle the problem and support mental health at work – I was particularly encouraged to hear that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is piloting a new in-work mental health support service targeted at employees and employers.
As well as providing crucial support to help more organisations develop and sustain mentally healthy workplaces; the DWP is also firmly reinforcing the message that mental health is just as important as physical health in terms of overall well-being and productivity at work.
What makes this service even better is that it’s funded by Access to Work and is free to the organisation. This innovative pilot is being delivered by Remploy in partnership with ProAbility. If you want to access the support on offer, or find out more, contact the team on 0845 146 0520 or email: proability@remploy.co.uk
1 Comment | health, Stress, Well-being | Tagged: Access to Work, anxiety, Department for Work and Pensions, Depression, DWP, mental health, physical health, ProAbility, Remploy, Sickness Absence, Stress, The Centre for Mental Health, UK | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
May 17, 2011
MIND, the mental health charity, has this week revealed that four out of every ten people in the UK feel ‘stressed’ or ‘very stressed’ at work. With jobs becoming increasingly insecure and downsizing so prevalent, many people are frightened of admitting to their employers, or line managers, that they struggle to cope with excessive work-related pressure. They are essentially afraid that if they are labelled as ‘weak’ they will be made redundant at worst or sidelined at the very best. The result is that ‘stress’ is now truly a ‘four letter word’ in the workplace!
When the economy was growing and the supply of jobs was reasonably healthy there was a greater openness from individuals. With widespread investment in stress management and stress counselling they were much more comfortable admitting that they couldn’t cope or were having problems with aspects of their work. In these more challenging times this mentality is almost completely gone. There is now a tendency to keep job-fit or job stress issues quiet because retaining any job, as opposed to being in the right job, has become the goal.
This is a real problem for HR professionals, because they are only able to deal with structural and personnel problems at work when they hear about them. If employees don’t reveal what is troubling them, or the pressures they are facing, things will only get worse. By the time these issues surface it may be too late to deal with them, as the employee may have become ill from the stress, left the organisation or their performance will have deteriorated to the point that they are no longer seen as an asset to the employer. HR needs to be supported by a culture that values openness and takes these concerns seriously. As President Ronald Reagan once said:
“I’ve always believed that a lot of the troubles in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other”.
Maintaining a healthy and engaged workforce with good, open lines of communication in the workplace is the key to ensuring that we don’t slip back to the bad old days of the ‘80s and early ’90s when stress was swept under the carpet or dismissed as irrelevant in a climate that emphasised making money at all costs. In this day and age, we’re better than that!
1 Comment | health, pressure, Stress | Tagged: communication, economy, HR, job stress, job-fit, mental health, MIND, performance, President Ronald Reagan, stress counselling, stress management, work-related pressure | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
April 19, 2011
Two pieces of research grabbed my attention recently – from different continents yet drawing very similar conclusions. Broadly, the findings showed that those respondents who were ‘actively disengaged’ at work or had ‘poor quality’ jobs, reported lower levels of well-being than those who were unemployed.
Gallup’s research found that American workers who were ‘actively disengaged’ (emotionally disconnected from their work) evaluated their lives more poorly than those who were unemployed. The disengaged also reported that they were less likely than the unemployed to feel well-rested, treated with respect, to smile or laugh a lot, have learned something interesting, or experienced enjoyment the day before the survey.
The other piece of research was from the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University in Canberra. The researchers found that overall, unemployed respondents had poorer mental health than those who were employed (as we would expect). However, the mental health of those who were unemployed was about the same or better to those in the poorest quality jobs.
These findings are really important, especially with lots of activity in recent years about the health benefits of getting people back to work (such Dame Carol Black’s review, ‘Working for a healthier tomorrow’). However it’s not a brand new concept – Waddell and Burton (2006) were commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions to conduct a review of the scientific evidence to answer the question “is work good for your health and well-being?” Among their many findings, they concluded that “work is generally good for your health and well-being, provided you have ‘a good job’.”
Which invites the question, what exactly is ‘a good job’? The Australian research measured job quality through levels of control, demands and complexity, levels of job insecurity, and fairness of pay. From their review, Waddell and Burton provide a tentative list of characteristics of what distinguishes ‘good’ from ‘bad’ work:
• safety;
• fair pay;
• social gradients in health;
• job security;
• personal fulfilment and development; investing in human capital;
• accommodating, supportive & non-discriminatory;
• control/autonomy;
• job satisfaction;
• good communications.
These factors are broadly the same as those measured by tools such as the HSE Indicator and ASSET survey – tools designed to identify the sources of stress and low well-being. Critically, these are also mostly factors which managers and leaders have some influence over, so it’s vitally important that these issues are monitored and actions taken. Work can and should be beneficial for us, so we need to ensure that it’s ‘good work’!
1 Comment | employee engagement, health, Stress, Well-being | Tagged: ASSET, Australian National University, autonomy, Burton, Canberra, Centre for Mental Health Research, communication, control, Dame Carol Black, Department for Work and Pensions, disengaged, employed, fair pay, Gallup, good work, health, HSE, job satisfaction, job security, mental health, personal fulfilment, research, safety, Stress, unemployed, Waddell | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
February 2, 2011
It is fantastic to hear today’s announcement that the UK government is investing £400m in making talking therapies available on the NHS. This is wonderful news given that one in six people suffer from a common mental disorder such as depression, anxiety or stress. The emotional strain on those affected and their families can be enormous, and the costs to society in terms of treatment, lost productive value, sickness absence and so on, total nearly £100b per annum. So the funding certainly makes sense from both a fiscal and a moral stand point.
However, as well as making the resources available to treat people, we also need to get at the source of this 21st century epidemic. WHO has predicted that by 2030 ‘depression’ would be the number one burden of disease in the world. It’s therefore imperative that as well as treating mental illnesses, we explore the factors that underpin them, so that more preventative measures can be taken in the future.
Some of these sources have already been identified through the government’s Foresight project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing. Factors include debt, the breakup of the family and community, loss-related events in people’s lives, poor housing and other environmental issues, being bullied at work, lack of early identification of symptoms and many more. Whether it is in schools, communities or in the workplace, we need to tackle some of these issues at source if we are to stop the increasing tide of mental ill health in our society. We can make a difference if we are brave enough to find solutions to the reasons people become ill in the first place, and take action before it is too late.
Leave a Comment » | health, Stress | Tagged: anxiety, debt, Depression, epidemic, government, mental health, mental illness, NHS, Sickness Absence, Stress, talking therapies, treatment, UK, WHO | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
December 10, 2010
I have just returned from the World Economic Forum meeting in Dubai, where I am a member of the Global Agenda Council on chronic disease and well-being. While I was there we were also discussing the UN Summit meeting on non communicable diseases (NCD), to be held at the UN Headquarters in New York on the 19th September 2011. The GAC want to highlight the enormous costs of these illnesses, from heart disease and cancer to mental ill health, and have decided to maximise exposure by organising a well-being week in New York to coincide with this important global event.
In 2004 the UN produced a list of the ten leading causes of disease, and also estimated the ill health burdens we will be facing in 2030. In 2004, four of the top five were NCDs: lower respiratory infections, diarrhoeal diseases, depressive illness and heart disease – all of which are potentially preventable. By 2030, they predict the top four will be (in order of priority): depressive illness, heart disease, road traffic accidents and cerebrovascular disease.
You can see from these lists the mental ill health has risen from third to first as a major global burden of disease. It is therefore vital that we begin to deal with mental ill health and attempt to enhance mental well-being, whether in people’s private life, at work or in the family and community. With nearly one in four people in the UK suffering from the common mental disorders of depression, anxiety and stress, this is a real destroyer of people’s lives, as well as their health.
Leave a Comment » | health, Stress | Tagged: anxiety, cancer, Depression, Dubai, GAC, Global Agenda Council, heart disease, ill health, mental ill health, New York, non-communicable diseases, Stress, UN, World Economic Forum | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
July 12, 2010
With Britain having the longest working hours in the EU, and the link between long hours and ill-health firmly established, we need to ensure that as many people as possible have access to better ways of working in the future.
Rather than working longer hours we should be working more flexible hours – and reaping the rewards of the productivity and efficiency gains this can bring. And as technology increasingly allows many of us to work away from the office – why not? That’s why I’m glad to hear that organisations that support flexible working are receiving the recognition they deserve. The Working Families charity has launched the ‘Top Employers for Working Families award’ for organisations that encourage flexible working, paternity leave, carer provision, emergency childcare and other innovative type of policies. As 40% of the workforce have responsibilities for dependents (children, elder parents, etc.), the importance of these initiatives should not be underestimated.
I also think this approach can and should be adopted even more broadly. The evidence from the government’s Foresight report on ‘mental capital and wellbeing’ indicated that because of the benefits to the health and efficiency of individuals it is cost-effective for the ‘right to request’ flexible working to be open to all, rather than just those with children. By providing their support, employers can promote greater work-life balance, which in turn enhances the productivity and health of UK Plc. Our productivity as a country, both now and in the future, depends on our ability to ensure better balance in life by working smarter and not longer.
If your organisation would like to enter the award scheme you can contact Working Families via the link below, the closing date is the 16th July. If you win the award it could do wonders for your employer brand and, in turn, your employees will benefit.
http://www.workingfamilies.org.uk/
1 Comment | employee engagement, health, Productivity, reward and recognition | Tagged: employers attitude to flexible working, Flexible Working, flexible working initiatives, mental capital and wellbeing, productivity adn flexible working, rewards of productivity and efficiency, The Working Families charity, Top Employers for Working Families award, work-life balance, working longer | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
June 29, 2010
I recently read a short article about a new role that has been created at Elmbridge Borough Council in a bid to reduce the number of days lost to sickness absence – that of the ‘well-being officer’. The job description, although apparently not yet set in stone, will require the officer to tell workers to go for walks, take breaks, to generally provide a ‘calming vibe’ and make sure workers are happy in their jobs…..
Now, on the face of it, I can already hear a lot of you scoffing at this ‘non-job’, something which I believe was the intention of the article’s author. The salary ranges up to a healthy £35K per annum, too, by the way. But looking a bit closer, it’s not as ludicrous as some might think. The article suggested that the role would centre around reminding people to live a healthy lifestyle and reduce their chocolate intake – a ‘well-being champion’ if you will. However, closer inspection of the Council’s website reveals that the job is plainly advertised as a Health and Safety and Well-Being Adviser, which, as we all know, is a common role – requiring the NEBOSH diploma and IOSH membership. The adviser will be expected to “manage health & safety issues, raise the awareness of our managers and staff, develop our risk assessment activities, policies and procedures and co-ordinate the health & safety training programme”. So what we have here is a reframing or updating of a familiar role – is that a bad thing?
Certainly from my perspective it is a very important role in any organisation – and I’m sure the members of my University spin-off company’s Business Well-Being Network would agree because many of them hold similar roles. If designed and properly implemented in an integrated manner, the role can actually act as a lynchpin for an organisation’s overall well-being strategy. The best organisations I’ve come across take such roles seriously and those employed in them are empowered to make change happen across the board. By ensuring that well-being activities are co-ordinated and that all employees are aware of them, well-being professionals help organisations to realise the business, group and individual level benefits that investment in this area brings. I say long live the well-being adviser!
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/831374-35-000-job-to-say-drink-some-tea
1 Comment | health, job satisfaction, Productivity, Well-being | Tagged: Business Well-Being Network, chocolate, Elmbridge Borough Council, health and safety, healthy lifestyle, IOSH, NEBOSH, risk assessment, training programme, university, well-being officer, well-being professionals, well-being strategy | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
