The UK Government has just published the independent review “Keeping Britain Working” on what can be done to tackle burgeoning economic inactivity arising from workers’ ill health and what can be done to promote healthy and inclusive workplaces.
The case for change is pretty stark. Since the pandemic, the number of working-age people who are economically inactive due to health conditions has increased by 40% to a total of 2.8m. Projections suggest that, without action, another 600,000 could leave work by 2030. Add to this nearly 1m NEETS (young people not in employment, education or training) , and we clearly have widespread economic inactivity, which compares unfavourably with other western European countries
The ramifications of economic inactivity for peoples’ lives are clearly significant but the impact on businesses, services and the country as a whole is also great. If people perform poorly or leave work due to ill health, everyone loses – the individual and their family or dependents, the employer and their business resilience and the state. The cost to employers of poor workplace health is £85 billion pa. The impact on the NHS is profound.
Nationally, the percentage of working age people with poor mental health has doubled since 2010. The mental ill-health, that may have been the reason for leaving a job may only be exacerbated by the ensuing inactivity. We don’t fully understand the mental health drivers but as The Health Foundations’ analysis of working age mental health trends points out there is a vicious circle in that mental health affects participation in work but the work itself can influence mental health.
There are clearly firms (often the larger ones) that have very good systems for dealing with health related issues and work in creative ways to ensure that their workers don’t drop out of work by default. But the Government review also talks about how “fear pervades the landscape” both for individuals who are frightened to reveal their issues and difficulties and employers reticent to take action for fear of this being misinterpreted or being seen as interference. Dispute resolution is often ineffective, leading to escalation that ends in dismissal and sometimes expensive claims. There are obviously emotional costs to employees, but also to managers and HR staff.
The Review promotes a phased approach based on 3 principles:
- Rehumanise the workplace
- Systematic change and not piecemeal fixes
- Encourage a race to the top – extending the boundaries of good practice, supporting what is going well and creating a national change movement engaging all parties.
How they will go about it seems a bit vague at this stage . You can read more about it and the Vanguard phase here
So what has this got to do with coaching?
Well first a disclaimer. Coaching is not counselling and any attempt to use coaching to address mental health issues would be wrong and unethical. But coaching has much to contribute to the rehumanising of the workplace.
What coaching is particularly good at is helping people make sense of connections and links, their own agency within the system and the consequences of actions. Workplaces are complex dynamic systems and coaching can help leaders, managers and people right across the workforce make sense of their roles, their contribution and the things that affect them which are within their control and those which are not.
Coaching can help individuals to develop the confidence to raise issues and rise above that fear which the Government review says “pervades the landscape” – and that applies to managers too.
In “rehumanising” the workplace, coaching can help people identify and work through the stresses that could lead to ill health and anticipate the tipping points so that preventive steps and other interventions can be agreed
Ultimately, coaching on a corporate basis can help co-create systems where the workload strains are more balanced, and the greatest productivity can be achieved without and adverse effect on the organisation’s key resource – its workforce.