EMPLOYEE WELLBEING A


happy employee is a productive employee – according to an


array of modern evidence. If you have trouble believing that, then let’s start with this: a depressed employee is a very unproductive employee, says Jo Swinson MP


Depression can be a debilitating condition. In 2009, depression cost the UK economy at least £9.2 billion. That figure simply comes from looking at the people who were out of work due to depression and calculating the wages they would have earned had they been in work.


However, that is an extremely conservative estimate of the cost of depression overall. It doesn’t take into account the value that those individuals would have actually added to the economy which would most likely have been far greater than their wages. It also doesn’t take into account the documented reduction in productivity that depression causes for those who stay in work.


The cost of productivity losses for that so-called “presenteeism” are harder to calculate, but are also extremely large. A study published in 2004 by the American Psychiatric Association showed that employees with mild depression experienced a 12% reduction in productivity compared to their healthy peers, a figure rising to 21% for people experiencing major depression.


Although not exclusively concerned with depression, the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health put the cost of presenteeism from all mental health problems combined at £15billion in 2007.


So can anything be done? And if it can be done, can public sector executives help do it? The answer to both questions would appear to be yes. We know, for example, that stress at work is a key cause


Sep/Oct 10


of depression. We also know that certain workplace policies can prevent or reduce stress. Executives in the public sector need to take the mental wellbeing of their workforce seriously.


It is not only depression that is the issue here. Depression can be a serious condition that needs medical treatment but it is only the tip of the iceberg. A great many more employees experience levels of stress or dissatisfaction that seriously hamper their performance – even if they are not medically classed as depressed.


So putting aside those with clinical depression, does improving happiness actually improve job performance and productivity for workers in general? A range of interesting academic research suggests that it does.


Firstly, here is a simple experiment conducted by Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. In the experiment, participants were asked to do a simple mathematical task under time pressure and were paid according to how well they did. This was an attempt at mirroring a real world work scenario.


Prior to the task, participants were split into three groups – one group watched clips of comedy, one watched a series of random lines on a screen and the final group watched nothing. The group watching the comedy not only reported that their mood was higher after watching the clips – but also significantly outperformed the other groups on the task.


Secondly, moving to a real world setting, researchers at Carleton University in Canada conducted a study over time, measuring happiness versus reported productivity from directors. It was not only found


that happier employees were more productive in general – but productivity went up and down on an individual level, depending on how happy that particular employee was on any given day.


So what should employers do? The first and most obvious answer is to offer flexible working arrangements where possible. We know that offering employees flexible working arrangements tends to improve their happiness. According to the Happiness at Work Index, produced by Badenoch and Clark, 82% of employees who are allowed flexible daily working hours define themselves as happy compared to 73% of those who had no such benefits.


Obviously there are some jobs where this cannot be done but where it is possible, it pays dividends. In fact, the Happiness at Work index suggests that in some circumstances that you can go even further. It was found that 90% of employees who had the opportunity to work from home at least once per month defined themselves as happy.


Again, such arrangements are not always possible. Someone who operates heavy machinery in a factory, or someone who works on a shop counter obviously cannot do their job from home but there are many employees who could benefit.


Flexible working is one area where the public sector can and should take a lead. The coalition agreement contains a commitment to grant the ‘right to request’ flexible working to all employees. This is a right for employees to ask if they can work flexibly – and where their employer can only turn it down if there is a valid business case.


However, there is nothing to stop public sector employers from embedding the flexible working opportunities prior to the


legislation – and in all likelihood, if they did, they would swiftly reap rewards. According to the Government Office of Science’s Foresight review into mental capital and wellbeing, for every £1 it costs to introduce flexible working opportunities for all employees, the payback is £4.


Another strategy is to conduct a professionally conducted ‘wellbeing audit’. Such an idea may sound scary but the idea is not to chastise people for being miserable (which in any case would be counter-productive), but to identify the barriers to people achieving happiness at work.


Professor Cary Cooper led such an audit of Somerset County Council. The audit discovered that the employees with the lowest levels of wellbeing, somewhat ironically, worked in the Council’s mental health services. An in-depth analysis of the mental health services indentified employee overload as the key barrier to wellbeing.


As a result of the analysis the Council employed 22 extra social workers and provided additional services to its employees such as stress management courses. Although the changes cost the Council f500,000 over two years, it reduced absenteeism by roughly a quarter – bringing in an estimated value of £1.9 million.


Those are just two ideas but there are many more from providing good quality nutrition in canteens to improvements in management training. However, the key thing is that executives in the public sector take this issue seriously.


The public sector should lead the way in this area with the positive results not only bringing happiness to its employees, but providing a better and more productive service too.


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