ABOUT
The Road to Wellbeing is an approach and set of ideals for delivering occupational health and wellbeing within the highways sector. The model, from Safer Highways, is of guidance and provides a framework under four strategic headings to support the sector by developing a leading approach to the management of Occupational Health and Wellbeing. This guidance will support national strategies and guidance as well as a number of legal requirements regarding employment, including employers' duty of care as well as satisfying best practice guidance such as the basic core mental health standards in the Thriving to work review by Stevenson and Farmer.
Through the “Road to Better Wellbeing”, it is our aspiration to significantly improve the level of physical and mental wellbeing and the work environment in which our employees work and develop a specific industry wide standard for all.
The “Road to Better Wellbeing “is a three- year plan which provides a support network to help our supply chain to ensure legal compliance, achieve best practice and demonstrate maturity in Occupational Health and Wellbeing Management. It will be supported by free resources made accessible on a hub/portal for all the supply chain to use arranged in a clearly defined pathway. At the same time, we also will be working with the Tier 1 contractors to amend their contractual terms to lower tiers to support them rather than be a requirement to deliver.
THE BIG CONVERSATION
This year’s survey’s results, launched at the online Safer Highways Mental Health Summit, revealed that nearly 30% of the industry has become fully compliant within three years with the core standards set out against the Government’s commission Thriving at Work standards on which the survey is based.
The report found that of the 134 organisations that took part, a significant increase on last year’s survey, 18% have now completed both the core and enhanced standards-around a fifth of the sector. Only 13 organisations are still working towards meeting any of the ten standards and eight organisations are only meeting one of the standards. It is hoped that the benchmarking survey and the personalised report has highlighted to these organisations what they should be looking at introducing for their employees and has directed them to the available resources as employers.
Overall, said the survey, it is clearly apparent that organisations within the highways sector are acknowledging their role in supporting mental health in the workplace. Through deeper analysis of the responses, it appears that organisations are doing several initiatives but are not building these into a wider strategy or plan on mental health. Thriving at Work is designed to steer organisations to the areas where they are not compliant and offer resources to build strength in this area, said the survey report. This bench- marking survey was designed specifically as an educational survey through steering those completed the survey to the guidance sections on how to improve in each specific area and ultimately achieve compliance.
Kevin Robinson, Chief Executive of Safer Highways, said:
“For the second year running our industry-leading benchmarking report shows that as a sector our provision of support for mental health in the workplace is increasing. As an industry collectively this deserves a massive amount of recognition with reference to the great strides we have made. On behalf of the Safer Highways team, can I say a big thanks to everybody who took the time to complete the survey in such a open and honest way.”
