Department for Work and Pensions: Developing a holistic policy to manage work pressure and stress in a multi-faceted organisation

Contact

Anne Donald – Head Office, Sheffield E-mail: anne.donald@jobcentreplus.gov.uk

Background

The main challenge facing DWP is that it is made up of a number of businesses with various arrangements for managing stress or, as the Department prefers to call it, uncomfortable work pressure.

The Department follows a similar pattern to other employers with stress being one of the biggest causes of work related illness, and stress-related illnesses being the most common cause of long term absenteeism. Approximately 21% of the Department’s sick absence is due to mental ill health problems such as depression, anxiety and nervous disability to which stress may have been a contributory factor.

To help develop a coherent and generic policy for identifying and managing uncomfortable work pressure, the Department has set up a working group with representatives from each of its businesses and its trade unions.

The initiative

The working group’s terms of reference were defined as:

• to steer the evaluation and fact finding;
• to assist with the development of a new core policy depending on the recommendations; and
• to participate in best practice network groups to share with each other how they are implementing the core policy in their own part of DWP.

HSE-sponsored research by UMIST into Beacons of Excellence in Stress Management identified two organisations - the Employment Service and the Benefits Agency - both of which are now part of DWP.  The working group decided to use the good practices used in these two organisations, as well as other organisations identified by the research, to help inform the development of a department-wide policy. The working group and also the Senior HR Management Team was also agreed that the HSE Management Standards for Stress will also be used to help inform the policy that is developed.

Results

The working group identified the following examples of good practice within DWP:

• Managers being issued with copies of HSE guidance on tackling workplace stress.
• Obtaining senior management commitment to manage uncomfortable work pressure and ensuring they attend in the early stages and check on attendance of their staff.
• Coaching of senior managers to encourage them to consider their own working styles and attitudes and how this might affect their behaviour towards others at work.
• Health screening with one-to-one clinics for all employees within a particular part of the Department. The health screening includes an anonymous stress audit (questionnaire on lap top completed during session); information such as how stressed employees are; how they cope with stress; likelihood of developing Coronary Heart Disease; and suggested lifestyle amendments. The data is then analysed to assess the prevalence of employees at risk from, for example, elevated cholesterol, coronary heart disease, stress, alcohol abuse etc. The health issues identified by the health screening determine future health promotion activity and awareness raising. This includes stress awareness.
• Use of the Department’s Employee Assistance Programme as an integral part of it’s managing attendance and uncomfortable work pressure policies.
• Use of the annual staff survey to provide a trigger and a context for discussing what is going well at work as well as the barriers to a happy and productive working life and possible solutions.

The next step is for the policy to be drafted along with supporting procedures for the working group to consider further.

Evaluation

To encourage continued participation and enthusiasm, the work of the group is agreed one phase at a time and is assessed at regular intervals to ensure its continued relevance and usefulness.

The group has recognised the importance of getting input from those people who will have to implement any policies they come up with. To this end, the group has set up an e-mail address through which employees can comment on and contribute to the process.

Conclusions

In a large umbrella organisation such as DWP, developing a stress policy which complements the diverse priorities of numerous departments and agencies can be a daunting prospect.

DWP have shown that a good first step is to involve all the relevant parties (senior management, employees, the unions) to consider good practices being used by other employers, establish what good practice exists within the various parts of the organisation and widen it to include the whole organisation.