How to Improve Mental Health in the Workplace: Industry Insights

We have been delivering Mental Health First Aid training to some exceptionally hardworking teams in the Construction, Renewable Energy and Food & Drink sectors.

Whether building houses, managing wind or fish farms, developing green technologies, farming food or distilling drinks, these organisations keep our needs met and our economy moving.

Many of these teams work outside – on-site, on land or water. They move between the outdoors and laboratories, boats and porta-cabins, workshops and factories, vehicles and sheds, doing the often dangerous and demanding work, largely unseen by the rest of us.

Whether doing maintenance or field research, staff often work away from home and are under pressure to meet deadlines, find solutions, deliver innovation or manage logistics and supply chains. Expectations are high, and the pressure is always ‘on’.

Engagement on site

Managers on these sites are responsible for the safety of their staff, and for the contractors, apprentices and consultants who form part of their teams for month and often years. Overseeing the wellbeing of everyone in these complex environments throws up many challenges in geography and communications, but also in engaging with people with very different life experiences and needs.

Besides personal and job stress, there are sector specific stressors arising from the competitive demands of the industry. These can be hard to tackle as the industry needs to make the necessary adjustments. The organisations we work with are proactively addressing the causes of stress that they can influence and are getting out to the furthest reaches of their sites to engage with and support their people.

The Construction Industry

According to Daisie Rees-Evans from the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), ‘Mental ill-health is a silent crisis within the construction industry’. The work is both physically and mentally challenging. So, companies take health and safety measures seriously and are becoming acutely aware of the need to look after the psychological wellbeing of their teams as well.

According to the charity Mates in Mind, 26% of construction industry professionals thought about taking their own life in 2019. The latest research done by Professor Billy Hare at Glasgow Caledonian University has identified that the number of suicides in construction rose from 26 to 34 per 100,000 in the seven years to 2021, meaning those in this industry were nearly four times more likely to take their own life compared to other sectors last year.

In a recent report, CIOB’s President, Professor Charles Egbu estimates that 56% of construction professionals work for organisations with no policies on mental health. This is beginning to change as the industry recognises the social and business costs of not stepping up.

Overcoming barriers

Implementing a comprehensive ‘workplace wellbeing strategy’ in a multi-site environment throws up complex challenges, not just geographically but in accessing pockets of hard-to-reach people; overcoming cultural barriers; tackling the ubiquitous ‘macho’ culture; supporting a young workforce and providing appropriate support for those with disabilities and other functional needs.

The industry is getting to grips with stigma and diversity tolerance and is supporting those with complex life challenges whether environmental, social or lifestyle related.

Health Management and self-care

Men are less forthcoming about their health issues and often don’t seek medical attention until they are in a crisis, which results in delayed diagnosis and treatment. Long hours combined with limited clinical opening times and the misconception that being unwell is a sign of weakness, all contribute to poor outcomes.

Employers can play a positive role in making health management a priority and normalising the topic of ‘self-care’ which helps to banish stigmas and promote prevention and the benefits of early intervention.

Many companies have good support and policies in place but are often poor at communicating them. Employees need to know about internal supports like employee assistance programmes and mental health first aiders and need to know what to expect when contacting them to remove any presumed risks.

Hard hats and kind hearts

Supervisors on site who can relate well to staff and are not afraid to talk about mental health are valuable allies in protecting staff wellbeing. Discretion can be maintained via daily check-ins with teams, identifying safe spaces to talk, visual messaging around the site and online resources.

Introducing a buddy system, mentors or peer support can provide a real and lasting impact, as can the role models who champion mental health initiatives.

How the learnings from Mental Health First Aid training and awareness campaigns manifests on the ground, will depend on the impetus of key people from every part of the organisation and at every level. Top to toe involvement is crucial to the success of these initiatives.

The Renewables Sector

This emerging global industry is becoming a big player in the Scottish Highlands and Islands economy and is a beacon of hope for clean and sustainable energy worldwide. Renewable energy companies are hubs of innovation and cutting-edge technology, employing a highly skilled workforce both nationally and globally.

These organisations have high profiles in small communities and create employment and skilled jobs in predominantly rural areas. As international research centres they offer great opportunities for wider collaboration, but they also impact the local infrastructure and culture.

Employees in this sector are a mix of specialists, researchers and maintenance people, with many working far from home. The pressures specific to this sector include high expectation, isolation and climatic exposure.

Companies that invest in the mental health and wellbeing of their staff make themselves more attractive to top candidates while lowering retention costs as employees feel more resilient knowing they are valued. This investment also has a positive domino effect on the families and communities within their orbit.

A Duty of Care

The difficulty of delivering the ‘duty of care’ for the physical and mental wellbeing of staff significantly increases in these often, remote regions. Quashing stigma and maintaining confidentiality are of prime concern in smaller communities. A company’s international reputation, research funding, and investment are all significantly impacted by its ability to get this right. Although most of these companies are global players, many are start-ups or spin-offs from university research institutes and have to build the foundations of employee wellbeing from scratch. Whether large or small, they are being responsive and getting up to speed faster than the north wind.

Food and Beverage

We love our drafts and drams, our confectionary and fish, our clean water and quality agricultural products and so do the rest of the world. This major manufacturing sector is growing Scotland’s export economy and its industries have sustained communities for centuries. Ranging in size from micro to massive, these companies employ us and bolster our wider supply chains.

There’s a myriad of different stressors that people in these industries have to deal with, from ‘cost of living’ pressures to supply chain issues to job fulfilment and security. There is a concerted effort now to attract and keep the right people. Proactive management is improving training and employment conditions, making their brands more attractive to staff and investors alike. We will always need to eat and drink but the challenges of the pandemic, politics and an economic downturn have created enormous pressures within this industry. Supporting our food security, through its producers and workers is common sense.

Innovation at ground level

We can provide mental health and organisational training but how these learnings become embedded into the workplace is best designed in conjunction with the people on-site. There is no point in having a top-down approach that comes from an office-based management team that is likely to both miss the targets and the opportunities.

The knowledge and experience of people on the ground is vital for bringing workable and creative solutions to the table. In these mixed environments, the best way to find out what will work is to ask those on site and have them co-design wellbeing programmes that can adapt to the changing nature of these working environments. Nothing should ever be set in stone, as flexibility, adaptation and change are always needed in an approach to people-based policies or projects.

Office staff can manage the systems, but those in the field, who understand the culture of the community, whether on a construction site or Hebridean island will know the best ways to ‘reach’ people and will understand the scope for providing the person-person support that corporate programmes are generally poor at delivering.

Having a ‘wellbeing focussed’ organisational culture allows one to set the tone and terms of engagement and will leave no vacuum for unhealthy habits and power plays to flourish, ensuring that the workplace itself is not contributing to poor mental health

Engaging everyone in mental health awareness and training and developing a core group drawn from every site will help to generate a working culture that is fit for purpose. If the people are flourishing within these flourishing industries, then we will have real sustainability.

Written by MHScot Team Member, Sonia Last.

Sources:

Evans, D. Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), Understanding Mental Health in the Built Environment, (May 2020)

Hare, B. Professor, Professor urges Scottish Government to release construction suicide figures, Glasgow Caledonian University News (1 December 2022),   

Lee Watson, Masters Dissertation ‘Men’s Experience of Peer Support in the Workplace’, MHScot Workplace Wellbeing, Networking presentation (29 Nov 2022). 

Mates in Mind