Achieving wellness in the workplace
Below, you will find case study examples of Training, Mediation and Consultancy, successfully carried out by Matt Nunnerley over the past few years. All cases are unique and we will be happy to discuss the specific situation affecting your business on a confidential basis.
Simply call on 01943 865650 to book an appointment.
Sessions are customarily delivered at the client’s offices or, in the case of mediation, at an entirely neutral venue, agreed by all parties.
Matt delivered training to managers and HR professionals at a well-known law firm in York. The directors of the firm had requested the training due to a lack of understanding amongst middle management about how to respond and manage staff that were experiencing symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression whilst in work. The company had policies in place about managing sickness absence at work, but managers felt unable to confidently communicate with staff about issues relating to mental health.
During the training, Matt outlined the business case for managing mental health in the workplace and focussed on the most common causes of sickness absence (stress, anxiety and depression). We also looked at the Stress Vulnerability Model as an explanation for why some employees can cope with stress when others cannot.
Presenting the case for managing mental health in the workplace is not easy. Many managers and HR professionals know that they are expected to know how to manage their staff, but are often reluctant to acknowledge that they need more help.
During the training, we also discussed how to identify when someone is becoming unwell at work and how to support them to prevent the issue becoming more serious. We must accept that managing sickness absence is a reality, and we discussed best practice about how to communicate with and support staff who are out of work with mental health issues. This can be a challenging time for managers and HR professionals, who are not comfortable around mental health issues in the workplace. Normalising issues and treating staff as if they have a physical illness is a key message from this training.
We also looked at the common problem of a lack of effective communication between staff on mental health-related absence and their line managers. This often relates to the managers lacking confidence about discussing mental health issues. Inherent in this is the need to plan their return to work and what support measures need to be put in place to ensure that return is successful and the risk of relapse reduced.
We spent time covering the Equality Act 2010, the definition of disability in the workplace and what is defined as “Reasonable Adjustments” in the workplace for staff who require extra support. The role of Occupational Health services in supporting staff with mental health issues whilst in work was highlighted.
The aim of our training is not to produce managers and HR professionals that can diagnose and treat staff who are struggling in the workplace, but to simply make them more confident about how to have a conversation about mental wellbeing. Simple things that we automatically do for staff when on sickness absence (e.g. flowers and a card) are often avoided when the issue relates to mental health, as staff and managers lack the confidence to communicate.
A key aim in all our training is to create healthier cultures in the workplace. This always starts with senior managers encouraging staff to feel able to divulge how they are feeling and to feel confident to state if they are beginning to struggle when at work.
In all of our training, we record how our clients have improved in their confidence around mental health issues in the workplace, and provide this data (anonymously) to the organisation that has employed us.
Matt was asked to mediate a conflict case at work between two colleagues, that had escalated to the point of becoming a disciplinary issue for their employer.
One of the failings that employers are prone to, is to try and resolve the problem internally. This is often done by a manager whilst in work. The key fundamentals of successful mediation are that it must be conducted by an independent 3rd party, outside of the workplace on neutral ground.
A key issue in this case was that one of the parties line-managed the other. This can create what is known as a “power imbalance”. To correct this issue, careful management of the mediation process is vital for success.
In the UK, we have a cultural tendency to avoid and restrain conflict. Consequently, it is often repressed and unresolved. A mediator is trained to allow conflict to happen in a controlled environment. People who are in conflict cannot achieve agreement without fully understanding the impact that the conflict has had upon the other person.
During the day of mediation, Matt spent the morning understanding the impact the conflict had on both parties. Neither party is permitted to meet the other during the morning, and significant time is spent preparing both parties about what they will say to each other when they meet in the afternoon.
On finally meeting, the personal impact of the conflict was reduced, thanks to the morning’s session. There was a natural, heated exchange of their experiences, which lasted for an hour.
Using mediation techniques, Matt managed the exchange, to achieve greater appreciation of the conflict’s impact for both parties. This naturally steers the communication towards resolution and agreement.
To many people, when conflict moves towards agreement, we assume that the problem is resolved. Trained Workplace Mediators know that the hard work is still to do. Agreements must be made to be sustainable and redundant in all cases, and this phase of the day can often last for hours.
At the end of the day, when durable agreements had been made, both parties gave their consent that the issues were resolved. Only those involved know what happened during the day of mediation, and their employer was simply informed of the outcome.
With all Workplace Mediation cases, we follow-up on progress after three months, to see if the agreements have been effective. In this case, the conflict remained resolved for both parties.
Workplace Mediation follows a strict full-day format. It is proven to be over 90% successful when delivered by qualified professionals.
One of our recent requests from an employer was to provide advice about a significant issue of staff sickness absence in the workplace. The employer knew that this was a problem, but only had a policy in place to manage the staff who took sick leave, not those experiencing “presenteeism” (being unwell whilst in work).
When Matt spoke to the senior managers of the company, outlining the true costs to employers of presenteeism, compared to the costs of sickness absence, the response was surprising. The company had a high turnover of staff, which they acknowledged, but felt it normal for their industry. They asked how Matt could justify the potential costs to their business of something that is difficult to measure.
Matt then presented them with the results of The Centre for Mental Health’s presenteeism survey in 2008 (costs to employers of staff with mental health issues estimated at £26 billion per year) and suggested this figure will probably have risen, given the deteriorating socio-economic climate. The managers were shocked by this statistic, and immediately requested advice on reducing sickness absence and presenteeism.
Viewing the company’s sickness absence policy, it became clear that the conditions were not generous. Sick pay lasted just 3 working-days, after which only Statutory Sick Pay conditions applied. Their recorded absence rates were largely for one or two days prior to employees returning to work. Matt pointed out that this policy was highly likely to encourage presenteeism in the workplace, and that staff were not being supported to manage health issues in the workplace.
The company argued that changing the sickness absence policy would encourage staff to have more time off work than before. Matt asked them what they would prefer: short amounts of time off sick, or reduced productivity for three to six months, followed by a significant period of sickness absence?
The company acknowledged the business case for managing mental wellbeing in the workplace, and agreed to a trial period of change to their sickness absence policy. This was extended to one week, and it was agreed that it would be reviewed in 3 months. Matt also suggested the proposal of staff being allowed 2 days a year when they could either work from home at short notice or ring in to say that they would not be coming in that day, if they had no pressing work commitments.
The company was very sceptical about these ideas, but agreed the give them a trial. When the issue was revisited 3 months later, the sickness absence rate had dropped by over 40%, and very few staff had used their allocated 2 days off per year. Some staff had had more time off sick, but rarely for more than the increased limit of one week. The company felt that whilst there had been an increase in sickness for a minority of their staff, the overall productivity of the business was likely to have significantly improved, along with morale.