Health Issues in the Workplace

Report - 1 July 2017

In this report we highlight our findings regarding what people understand the health and care concerns are faced by those in work. For the purposes of this study we focused on workers at a single, large office site in Bolton.

Summary:

Healthwatch and NHSBSA were interested to establish the particular experiences of this workforce from an occupational health perspective.  Healthwatch was also interested to find out how working people cope with health problems and relationships with health and care services.

89 individuals participated in this project and the key findings are as follows:

  • The most common health related issues were associated with family (19%) and personal health problems (19%), finances (8%) and mental health (14%).
  • The main difficulties faced at work were stress (20%) and the pressures of work (30%) although 28% said they were happy, enjoyed work and felt work had a minimal impact on their health and wellbeing.
  • Diet (23 people) and exercise (41 people) were most frequently mentioned with regards to what individuals felt kept them healthy, although family and friends were also cited by 16 people as important.
  • Regarding mental health support from employers whether employees were confident enough to talk to their employers was based mainly on trust and personal relationships. Half the respondents said they would speak to their employer but 1/3 said they would not.
  • 67% felt confident in supporting colleagues with their mental health.
  • 81% said they would know where to access help and support for their mental health with 52% citing their GP and 33% highlighting a mental health first aider in the workplace.

Conclusion:

Within this organisation employees identified that repetitive work and a lack of variation could cause problems and that stress was a factor to be considered when work was target driven.

Relationships with colleagues and management were seen as important and the strength of these determined how supported an individual felt and whether or not they would access support within the workplace.

There is a need for further understanding, awareness and support for employees who have a caring role outside of work from not only their employers but also occupational health and external support services such as GP’s.

Mental health first aiders in the workplace are seen as a positive asset however more focus needs to be placed on relationships between managers and employees including approachability and visibility.

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Health Issues in the Workplace
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