Centre for Mental Health

Working with employers

We want to have more employers signed up to provide a mentally healthy workplace and take active steps to recruit, retain and support the rehabilitation of people in their workforce who experience mental ill health.

Mindful Employer

Mindful Employer is the work of a voluntary, informal network of employers and support organisations open to any employer in the UK, whether small, medium or large, private, public or voluntary sector.

We are facilitating the development of Mindful Employer in the South East, working closely with Richard Frost and Workways, who co-ordinate the project. Four organizations will hold Employer engagement events to spread Mindful Employer's message and achieve wider sign-up through Local Employer Networks.

Mental health information:
let us help you get it right

Every business in Britain will have staff who experience mental distress. Many employers don't know how to support workers with mental health problems, nor how to promote wellbeing at work.

If you have produced, or are still working on, material to help employers deal with mental health issues at work, we can help you.

The Independent Review Panel has been set-up by Shift, the government anti-stigma programme for mental health. It will review and assess the quality and impact of materials designed to help employers promote mental wellbeing and manage mental ill health in the workplace.

Send us your material for free advice

Our service is free, confidential and voluntary. We will review the materials you send whether you want to publish it or not. Reviews will be posted, but only with your permission, on the Shift web site. Otherwise, they will be completely confidential.

At this stage, we can help you with materials about:

• Creating a mentally healthy workplace
• Early identification, prompt action and job retention when people first experience mental distress
• Supporting employees who have become unwell and helping them to return to work.

If you are thinking of sending something to us for review, please contact Jenni Bacon (jenni.bacon@scmh.org.uk) who will send you more information and a short questionnaire.

Survey of line managers

In 2007, line managers from a range of organisations answered a survey about mental health problems in the workplace. The survey tested their understanding of the issues; explored what they are currently expected (and able) to do to respond to employee needs; and asked what further support they might require going forward.

The results provided a valuable insight into the current state of play with regards to line managers and mental health, including:

• Most line managers have under-estimated the prevalence of mental ill-health amongst the UK population and within their own organisations
• Line managers have a very differing capacity to change different day to day working practices in order to accommodate mental health illnesses.
• The highest proportion of line managers (35%) stated that they need more support from their employer in the form of training.
• A high proportion of managers also said that their company needs to support them in dealing with mental health issues in the form of better company policies / guidelines.

Download the line manager survey findings (108 KB)

Health of people of working age

Dame Carol Black called for Evidence for her review of the health of people of working age in November 2007. It's part of the Government's Health, Work and Wellbeing initiative. Our evidence states that:

• Mental health problems are almost as common in the workforce as in the general population and that means they are very common indeed - a normal feature of every workplace in the land.
• There is little doubt that mental ill health is the single most important cause of health-related losses in productivity.

It suggests ways to help people with mental health problems stay in work or return to work, including:

• Measures to enable people to respond appropriately to colleagues or employees who are showing signs of distress.
• Early intervention to stop people building up barriers to their return to work.

For more, read our full response below.

Download our evidence to the Health, Work and Wellbeing review (84 KB)

Workplace interventions for people with common mental health problems

This is a 2005 review by Bob Grove and Linda Seymour of current evidence on how to reduce absence from work due to common mental health problems. It is published by the British Occupational Health Research Foundation.

The research was carried out by a multidisciplinary working group under the chairmanship of Dr Kit Harling, Director NHS Plus. The review was funded by Bunzl plc, Department of Work and Pensions, Department of Health, Esso, Faculty of Occupational Medicine, FirstAssist, GlaxoSmithKline and Vodafone.

Free copies of the review can be downloaded from the BOHRF site: the full text of the review, the summary for health professionals and the summary for employers & employees.