Today, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched an online community aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of people at work. The (appallingly named) Helping Great Britain Work Well initiative follows a call earlier this year from the HSE , trade unions and other organisations for businesses to focus on a broad range of health and safety and wellbeing issues. The HSE claims that the response from more than 100 employers was so positive, benefiting more than 300,000 workers, that they were inspired to create the new community to promote the advantages of cultural change. The launch of the new web community sets out to establish a social sharing network where companies and businesses can ‘make their commitments, share their journey of improvement and help each other and encourage others to follow in their footsteps’.

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New research from job site CV-Library claims that nearly two thirds (60.2 percent) of employees feel embarrassed about disclosing information on the state of their mental health with their employer. What’s more, 60.8 percent feel they cannot talk about it with their boss. The report explored the views of 1,200 UK workers and found that a third of professionals (31.7 percent) feel that their workplace is not supportive of mental health, with a further 77.8 percent believing that the majority of workplaces in the UK are unsupportive. Other key findings from the research include: Nearly two thirds (64.2 percent) of workers fear their employer would judge them if they spoke about their health issues, with a further 46.8 percent worrying that doing so will make them look weak; one third (36.7 percent) fear that they would get fired if they told their boss about their mental health issues; and 63 percent said that they would feel guilty taking time off work for mental health reasons.

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According to its 2017 Health Survey (registration required), Aon Employee Benefits claims that 96 percent of employers see a direct correlation between employee health, wellbeing and performance. The survey of 200 UK organisations also suggests that health and wellbeing is rising up the corporate agenda, with 96 percent of employers either agreeing or strongly agreeing that they are responsible for improving employee health behaviours. Indeed, 77 percent are looking to improve on their existing health and wellbeing programmes in the next 12 months. In addition, although employee physical health is important to employers, they are also looking to strike a balance between what are becoming the four widely accepted core pillars of health and wellbeing – Emotional, Physical, Social and Financial.

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A new report from the British Psychological Society, Psychology at Work: Improving Wellbeing and Productivity in the Workplace examines issues around work, health, and disability and recommends ways that policy makers and employers can tackle poor employment practices using interventions that work with human behaviour, not against it. The report has been launched today, Tuesday 14th November, at the BPS All-Parliamentary Group for Psychology’s (APPG) ‘Healthy Workplaces’ event hosted by Dr Lisa Cameron MP in the Houses of Parliament. Psychology at Work: Improving Wellbeing and Productivity in the Workplace’ was co-authored by Dr Ashley Weinberg, CPsychol AFBPsS, and Nancy Doyle CPsychol AFBPsS.

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