Search Results for: health

August 19, 2015

Home-workers are happier, healthier and more productive than ever ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Home-workers are more productive, happier and more capable of attaining a healthy work/life balance than those who work in an office, claims a new survey. Around 84 percent of home-workers believe they are equally or more productive then their office-based colleagues; and over three quarters (77 percent) of the UK’s working population agree that working from home has a positive impact on productivity. The survey of 1,800 professionals from CV library found that 18 percent work from home, with a further 15 percent splitting their time between home and the office, and the data shows that flexible working hours contributes to increased productivity (28 percent and 26 percent respectively). Although well over half (66 percent) of home-workers believe they work longer hours, more than three quarters (83.2 percent) find it easier to manage a good work/life balance.

August 4, 2015

Employers must support older workers with chronic ill health ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

As a recent profile in the Guardian Magazine of workers in their 70s, 80s and 90s illustrated, people who work well into old age are still viewed as remarkable. Yet by 2020, a third of the UK’s workforce will be more than 50 years old. Following the scrapping of the Default Retirement Age, more than 1.4m people in the UK are working after state retirement age, of whom around 300,000 are aged over 70. Now the Health at Work Policy Unit of Lancaster University’s Work Foundation has issued a White Paper, ‘Living Long, Working Well: Supporting older workers with health conditions to remain active at work’, which warns that 42 per cent of over 50s have often manageable chronic illnesses that – if left unsupported by employers, could undermine their productivity, increase their absence from work or even force them out of work altogether.

July 11, 2015

Agile workers beat strikes + World’s healthiest building + 3D printed office

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Newsletter, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace

In this week’s issue; Paul Carder points out agile workers were unaffected by tube and train strikes; Maciej Markowski says despite digital technological advances, companies still appear to value human interaction and Sara Bean suggests employers only encourage home-working when it is on their terms. Mark Eltringham finds two new reasons to dislike tall buildings and argues employers attempt to manage stress in the workplace in the wrong way. We learn that a Chinese 3D printing firm plans to print a fully functioning office in Dubai; Melbourne claims to have the healthiest workplace in the world and an alarming report finds that the Internet is reducing our ability to memorise and recall things for ourselves. Subscribe for free quarterly issues of Work&Place and via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar for weekly news, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

July 7, 2015

‘World’s healthiest workplace’ is unveiled in Melbourne

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Case studies, Environment, Wellbeing, Workplace design

For some time now, the most talked about workplace issue has been wellbeing. Where once firms sought ways of using office design to solve a productivity puzzle, they are now increasingly concerned with the mental, psychological and physical health of employees. This is the case for most organisations but doubly so for those whose business is directly related to those issues, such as Melbourne based health insurance firm Medibank. The firm, Australia’s largest health insurer has moved to a new headquarters building in the Docklands district of the city and took the opportunity to create a space which it claims should be hardwired with the proactive principles of personal wellbeing and health with which its business is associated. The building has been designed by Hassell to meet these principles and includes a facility with outdoor sporting facilities, an edible garden and other green spaces.

June 25, 2015

The healthy workplace is now a matter of public policy in the UK

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Promoting a culture that improves the health and wellbeing of employees is good management practice and leads to a healthy and productive workplace, according to the Governmental body charged with shaping policy and offering advice on health related matters in the UK. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), part of the Department of Health, has published a new set of guidelines on the issue and called on employers to do more to address the challenge of creating a productive and healthy workplace. According to NICE, workplace health is a significant public health issue with more than a million working people in the UK experiencing a work-related illness each year, leading to around 27 million lost working days and costing the economy an estimated £13.4 billion.

June 16, 2015

Back pain and mental ill health still the main reasons for workplace absence

by Sara Bean • Furniture, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Back pain and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) remain the prime reason for long-term workplace absence (38%); with stress and mental-health disorders the main cause of absence for one in four companies. However, the results of the UK’s largest business survey on sickness absence published by EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation and Jelf Employee Benefits reveals that stress and mental illness is regarded as the most difficult form of absence to make workplace adjustments for, with almost a third of companies saying this is the case. Furthermore, a third of employers said that they do not have approaches for managing mental-health-related long-term absence. Just one in ten companies provides training for line managers in mental-health issues and only 2 percent of companies have an open mental-health disclosure policy, suggesting business matches society in finding it a difficult issue to address.

June 8, 2015

Dietitians publish key findings on workplace health programmes

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

We spend around 60 percent of our life at work and consume at least a third of our daily food intake, which is why the British Dietetic Association (BDA) has announced that the theme of office for its new Chairman, Dr Fiona McCullough, will be workplace health. Responding to recent policies such as the NHS Five Year Forward View and the NICE public health guidance for the workplace, which recognise that businesses benefit from investing in the wellbeing of employees, the BDA is conducting a review of published peer-reviewed evidence of workplace health studies in order to determine how best individuals and employers can optimise health at work. This review will underpin the development of a BDA Work Ready Programme, which has produced interim research that has already highlighted the key role employers can play in enhancing the wellbeing of staff.

May 14, 2015

Expert advice issued on managing mental health in the workplace

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Mental health can affect people’s personal lives, wellbeing and morale. But it can also impact on their performance at work and be costly for businesses. That’s the message from Acas, which, to mark Mental Health Awareness Week, has issued a guide to managing mental health in the workplace. It advocates creating an environment where people feel confident they can disclose conditions to employers; that employers be aware of any changes in behaviour that might suggest they’re having problems; and suggests that if a problem is being caused by work, look into ways of facilitating changes, such as offering flexible working opportunities. It is also suggested that wellness initiatives which encourage healthy eating, exercise and mindfulness can also help to reduce the severity of mental ill health.

May 11, 2015

National prevention strategy called for to help workers with mental ill health

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Nearly half (46%) of workers struggle to switch off from work, a new survey has revealed. The survey by YouGov of over 2,000 British adults, commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation to mark the beginning of Mental Health Awareness Week (11 – 17 May) reports many people always or often feeling stressed (29%), anxious (24%) and depressed (17%). With the survey showing nearly two thirds of people (65%) likely to take part in activities that reduce stress, the Mental Health Foundation is calling for a national prevention strategy to reduce the risk of problems and for mindfulness to be more widely practised. Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy is recommended by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and endorsed in the Chief Medical Officer’s Mental Health report, for reducing the risk of depression.

April 22, 2015

UK’s health and social systems failing to improve workforce wellbeing ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Public Sector, Wellbeing, Workplace

A new report published this week by The Work Foundation, Healthy, Working Economies sets out the challenges facing the next UK government to improve the health and wellbeing of the country’s workforce. The report calls on the government to review how it is using local organisations, such as Health and Wellbeing Boards and Local Enterprise Partnerships to encourage improvements in workforce wellbeing and health. The Work Foundation recommends that a standardised set of measures be included in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessments performed by Health and Wellbeing Boards, including measures of employment outcomes for individuals with health issues. The report also suggests that employer leadership is needed to drive the step-change needed to improve the health of the workforce.

March 23, 2015

How artificial light affects our health in more ways than we think

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

Life on Earth has developed over the course of billions of years to attune its cycles and rhythms to the fixed routines of light and dark. Yet the modern world counters this hardwired biology in humans and radically increases our likelihood of developing a range of physiological and mental illnesses and conditions. That is the main conclusion of a new paper from Richard G. Stevens and Yong Zhu published by the Royal Society last week. The article outlines how inadequate light during the day, especially inside buildings, coupled with overexposure to artificial light in the evening not only disrupts our sleep patterns but alters our physiognomy at a metabolic, hormonal and even genetic level. The report also highlights how this can account for ‘a portion of the modern pandemics of breast and prostate cancers, obesity, diabetes and depression’.

March 5, 2015

People with mental-health issues should be helped to stay at work, says OECD

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Around 30 percent to 40 percent of all sickness and disability caseloads in OECD countries are related to mental-health problems finds a new OECD report. Fit Mind, Fit Job: From Evidence to Practice in Mental Health and Work reveals that the total cost of mental illness is estimated at around 3.5 percent of GDP in Europe. People with mild to moderate disorders, such as anxiety or depression, are twice as likely to become unemployed. They also run a much higher risk of living in poverty and social marginalisation. But although most people with mental health problems are in work they struggle; with 7 in 10 of them in 21 countries of the European Union reporting that they are underperforming at work. While a heavy workload and stress may add to mental health problems, the evidence shows that staying at work is also part of the solution if appropriate support is provided.