CIPD

By Rachel Suff and Claire McCartney, advisers at the CIPD 

The menopause is an urgent workplace issue that all employers should be taking seriously. Half the workforce is female, which means half the workforce will go through the menopause at some stage. Building awareness and openness around the menopause and providing support for those experiencing symptoms could transform the working lives of millions of women now and…

The focus of this year’s World Mental Health Day is on suicide prevention. Suicide can be an uncomfortable issue to address – but it is a vital that we raise awareness about it in the workplace. According to the World Health Organization, someone loses their life to suicide every 40 seconds. In September, the Office for National Statistics released some worrying figures for the UK, showing 11.2 suicide deaths…

How effective are organisations in creating mentally healthy workplaces for people? Mental health awareness week is an ideal time to stand back and take the temperature. How much progress has been made, and where do we need to focus attention to improve mental well-being?

In April we published our annual Health and well-being at work report with Simplyhealth, which provides the data we need to make an evidence-based assessment…

National Stress Awareness Month is a good opportunity for organisations and people professionals to stand back and think about what action could make the most difference to reducing people’s stress at work.

The increasing prevalence of work-related stress has been widely recognised for some time. According to statistics from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), work-related stress accounted for 57% of days lost…

Employers have made a lot of progress over the past few years in supporting people’s mental health. But the important Stevenson-Farmer ‘Thriving at Work’ review of mental health and employers published in autumn 2017 still showed ‘that the UK is facing a mental health challenge at work that is much larger than we had thought.’

This perspective was backed up by findings from the CIPD/Simplyhealth…

We still have a long way to go before most people can talk about mental health in the same way as physical health issues.  So it’s really important that we learn from people’s experiences of mental health at work, so that we can build more open and supportive workplaces.

The CIPD is partnering with Business in the Community on their National Mental Health at Work Survey 2018 in conjunction with Mercer and national…

The CIPD is a partner of the Royal Foundation’s Heads Together campaign which brings together The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, in partnership with eight inspiring charities that are tackling stigma, raising awareness, and providing vital help for people with mental health challenges.

The Royal Foundation is funding Mind to deliver ‘Mental Health at Work…

Harassment and bullying remain significant workplace issues despite increasing awareness of the problem. Research has shown that over half of women have experienced sexual harassment at work, rising to two-thirds of women age 18-24 years old.

Sex discrimination, including sexual harassment, legislation has been a firm part of equalities law in the UK for several decades, but these findings show that regulation alone -…

There isn’t a more important issue in today’s workplace than people’s health and well-being, and we’re seeing that many of the main risks to our health are now psychological. Mental ill-health is one of the biggest public health challenges facing society. And yet it is still much harder for most of us to talk about our mental, rather than our physical, health and this is no different in the workplace. Mental Health Awareness…

Carers Rights Day on 24 November is an important opportunity to raise awareness to recognise and support the role of carers in UK workplaces. Often, caring is a hidden responsibility but the latest State of Caring report by Carers UK estimates that 3 million people work and care in the UK – 1 in 9 in every workplace and this figure is set to increase. Therefore, the issue of balancing work and care responsibilities is…

World Mental Health Day is observed on 10 October every year, providing an opportunity ‘for all stakeholders working on mental health issues to talk about their work, and what more needs to be done to make mental health care a reality for people worldwide’ according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

If there is an issue that needs to be talked about more at work, it’s mental health. According to the…

The CIPD is pleased to support the new 'Wellbeing in Small Business' campaign, just launched by the Federation of Small Business (FSB). It includes a Wellbeing in Small Business hub where you can find useful information and practical advice for your organisation on mental health and general wellbeing. As well as case studies from the FSB membership and partner organisations like mental health charity Mind, there…

When the ‘Fit note’ replaced the ‘sick note’ in 2010, it was hoped that it would herald a new way for employers to manage sickness absence.

Instead of the binary approach of being either fit or unfit for work, it introduced a third category where employees ‘may be fit for work’ if some basic support was provided by the employer. It was thought this third option would enable an earlier and more…

For the past few months, the CIPD has been actively supporting the Royal Foundation’s Heads Together campaign with mental health charity Mind to end stigma around mental health. The campaign ‘aims to change the national conversation on mental health and wellbeing, and is a partnership with inspiring charities with decades of experience in tackling stigma, raising awareness, and providing vital help for people with…

The Supreme Court has unanimously allowed Unison’s appeal that the UK’s fee system for individuals enforcing their employment rights via employment tribunals is unlawful. The CIPD welcomes this ruling and has consistently called for a full public consultation to review the fee regime, first introduced in July 2013. We voiced our concerns again in our response to a recent Government consultation on the fee…

The political and economic events – including Brexit, national elections and terrorist attacks - currently taking place on a domestic and global scale pose a challenging environment for organisations and individuals. Even if someone is not directly affected by issues such as having the right to continue to live and work in the UK as an EU citizen, the uncertainty and troubling impact of these wider shifts can be unsettling…

Workplace stress is growing exponentially, with over 11 million days lost to anxiety last year in the UK, and consequent impacts on wellbeing and productivity…and this may be the tip of the iceberg when we also include presenteeism and unreported mental health issues. The CIPD’s 2016 Absence management survey, in partnership with Simplyhealth, found that stress was again the number one cause of long-term…

During Mental Health Awareness Week this week it’s a good time to take stock of how employers can develop the most effective framework to foster good mental health at work. The CIPD 2016 Absence management survey, in partnership with Simplyhealth, found that two in five (41%) employers had identified an increase in reported mental health problems over the past 12 months, so it goes without saying that many more…

There is no need to dilute the level of employment protection for employees in the UK, according to new research published by the CIPD. The study surveyed more than 500 senior HR professionals and employers about their views and experiences of implementing employment law. Now that Article 50 has been triggered, it is inevitable that the debate about the role of employment regulation will rise sharply up the public policy…

It’s with good reason that the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) World Health Day on 7 April will focus on depression. Depression is the largest cause of disability worldwide and, at worst, can lead to suicide, says the WHO. More than 80% of this disease burden is among people living in low- and middle-income countries.

In the UK, one in six adults met the criteria for a common mental disorder in 2014…

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has today published its new quality standard, ‘Healthy workplaces: improving employee mental and physical health and wellbeing.’ The CIPD served on the NICE steering group that developed this standard that aims to help organisations to improve people’s health and well-being.

NICE quality standards are recognised nationally and describe high…

The CIPD has just submitted its response to the Government’s Green Paper and consultation Work, health and disability: improving lives. The Green Paper has far reaching proposals for how employers support people’s health as well as how it aims to halve the disability employment gap by 2020. Its scope is wide-ranging, quite rightly examining how effectively the health and welfare systems support people’s health.…

CIPD research shows that employers are making increased use of mediation, and other forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), to resolve workplace issues. The 2015 study found that mediation by an external provider had been used in the last year by just under one in ten organisations, and its use had increased over the same period in one in three organisations. The survey also detected a marked interest by employers…

Many people with MS who feel able to work aren’t getting the right support at work, according to a new report published by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for MS (a cross-party group of MPs and peers with an interest in MS). The report follows a year-long review into whether people with MS have the support they need to stay in, or get back into, work, to which the CIPD gave oral evidence in the Houses of…

Some commentators are hailing last week’s Employment Tribunal ruling in the case brought by two London minicab drivers engaged by Uber as a huge victory against ‘bogus self-employment’. The tribunal, and employment judge Anthony Snelson, has indeed ruled that the drivers are ‘employed’ as ‘workers’ under the Employment Rights Act 1996 (as well as under the Working Time Regulations and National Minimum…