Work-related stress is the most common reason that leads employers to seek occupational health advice, an analysis of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) statistics by Legal & General has shown.
An analysis of reasons for calling the government’s pilot Occupational Health Advice Lines found that stress, followed by back pain and depression, was the most common condition prompting enquiry.
The findings complement recent DWP research which found that only 17% of employers have any form of stress management advice and support in place, despite stress being a leading cause of workplace absence.
Reacting to the findings, Diane Buckley, Managing Director of Legal & General Group Protection, said:
“Stress is one of the leading causes of long-term absence so it is important employers seek advice in handling stress-related absence. Group Protection products can offer advisory services to clients to help them manage stress-related illness more effectively.
“Legal & General’s early notification programme, Workplace Recovery, utilises its exclusive partnership arrangement with CBT Services Ltd to help get people back to work. For example, employees who are absent from work because of stress can be offered up to 24 sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) from this provider. Our success at helping employees back to work demonstrates the impact that specialist intervention can have, overall, seven out of ten stress claimants return to work.”
Stress is Britain’s leading cause of long term absence, according to a recent Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) survey. Their absence management annual survey report recently highlighted that for non-manual workers, stress is the second biggest cause of short-term absence and the leading cause of long-term absence
It’s very worrying that that only 17% of employers have any form of stress management advice and support in place, despite stress being a leading cause of workplace absence. My experience is that employers are less interested in hearing about stress prevention and management, and more interested in promoting wellbeing and resilience because these are seen as more ‘positive’. This may not seem such a bad thing, and undoubtedly, ensuring your people’s wellbeing and building resilience are crucial to helping prevent stress. But resilience, wellbeing and stress management training are not the same thing. Individuals and their managers need to understand what stress is, how to prevent it, how to spot it, and what to do about it – as well as how to promote wellbeing and resilience. This needs specific stress prevention and management training. Ignoring stress won’t make it go away. If anyone who wants to tackle stress in their organisation, team or at an individual level and would like some ideas on how to approach it (or how to disguise it as ‘wellbeing’ or ‘resilience’ training!) just drop me a line [email protected].
Clare Casson
Enabling people & organisations to thrive
Coach, consultant, trainer specialising in stress management, resilience, personal wellbeing, optimal performance http://www.clarecasson.co.uk
These figures do not surprise me. Over a third of referrals into our OH case management service are catagorised as mental health. What is disappointing and worrying is most companies only refer in when an employee has been absent for far too long which means employee engagement and swift resolution is much harder. We need to raise awareness and promote early and consistent intervention and referral into OH in order to give HR managers reports and guidance which helps them get the employee back to work and productive.
Corporate Health are holding a free stress seminar for HR managers in September. All welcome to hear Dr Charlie Vivian talk about this subject. Details on website blog