well as the wellbeing of individuals.” Psychotherapist Paul Ansorge from The Reach Approach, said: “There are a number of obvious benefits [to working from home] not having the stress of a commute, being able to have more relaxing sleep as there is less time pressure, and not having the stress of being observed all day and feel like you have to put on a show, especially if you’re struggling. “However, the lack of social contact
would be the key negative – as well as a kind of ‘four-walls’ syndrome of a lack of variety of environment. If you do work from home, compensating for both these things with your non-work time is pretty crucial!” PWC “Bringing people together
safely is important for teams, good for communities and good for the economy. There is also a mental health benefit for many,” said its chairman, Kevin Ellis. The Enterprise Research Council conducted its own study in May, at the
www.smeweb.com
height of Lockdown and during Mental Health Week. Responses from individual company bosses suggested that a post- Covid environment with more remote working could exacerbate productivity- sapping mental health problems. Questioning 1,900 Midlands firms from
micro-businesses to large companies, the researchers found that on the eve of the Lockdown, nearly a third of all firms reported seeing sick leave due to mental health problems such as depression and anxiety in the past year. And significantly, in firms that
recorded a hit to their performance as a result, the overall productivity of the company – defined as turnover per employee – was cut on average by 24.5 per cent. It suggested firms that fail to address problems caused by stress could be putting both their workers’ health and their own viability at risk. This followed another study by Deloitte that suggested mental health problems
could be costing UK firms up to £45bn a year from sickness absence, so-called presenteeism – being at work when ill but working less effectively – and higher staff turnover. The ERC is the UK’s leading
independent research institute on growth, productivity and innovation in SMEs. It said the findings, collected in the first quarter of this year just before coronavirus struck, would provide an important baseline for future studies on the effects of the virus on workers’ mental health. Director Stephen Roper, said: “This
shows that the scale of the mental health challenge in workplaces was already huge before the onset of Covid-19. “Given the massive dislocation to
people’s working lives since then, we can expect that situation to have got worse, especially because some of the risk factors highlighted by our study participants such as remote working have suddenly become far more commonplace.”n
SME magazine 19
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