little bit of appreciation and not breeze past us,” said one interviewee. “There was something about how valuable it would be to feel like the client giving them time to create genuine bonds,” said Dr Toro. “It was really significant and could be really impactful. “To balance that, there were really good bonds with
guys on the ground. But if there isn’t enough time to just have those conversations or take rest breaks, then there is no vent for just having a conversation where there may be an opportunity to talk about something that is troubling.” High levels of stigma and therefore concerns about
opening up and showing vulnerability is another significant area from the early research. This shows that where management are trained as mental health first- aiders, there is a slight mistrust around confidentiality, meaning this approach may be counterproductive. “The management perspective I got was someone
saying they’d known these guys for 20 years and ‘now I’m a manager, they don’t talk to me anymore’, so you’ve kind of got the two sides of that,” said Dr Toro. The impact of perceptions and experiences of culture
and hierarchy in the workplace are also at play. “Some of the solutions offered are that people just want to be treated with a little more respect and as humans. That was huge. To be incentivised and given a little praise when it comes to project-end because often it’s the guys in the office who get rewarded and less so the people we spoke to in the focus groups.”
A ‘GOOD WORK’ APPROACH TO BETTER ONSITE AND OFFSITE MENTAL WELLBEING? Dr Toro’s research also offered a unique opportunity to talk about experiences in different settings; specifically, the different experiences of workers relocating from Newcastle to Somerset to work on the Hinkley Point project who had a proper contract with a tier one contractor. “These guys had travelled a long way from their
home base in Newcastle or Scotland, but were living there pretty much permanently for a long period of time,” said Dr Toro. “What was really interesting was that when we tried to dig into the stressors, they weren’t as acute because job security and the benefits of a contract were really supportive. They could have sick pay, parental pay and the job security knowing that for the next 12 months they had a job. After that, they had also mostly already identified where they were going. “They had made a conscious decision to miss out on
family life, sure, because they were living away. Then their battle is ‘what weekend can I pre-opt to go and see my family and my kids?’ They’d make that decision because they’d get paid a lot more. The guys mentioned they were being paid twice as much as they would if they had stayed in Newcastle or Scotland. “But by making that decision there is something, that
sense, that feeling, of being empowered because you are weighing up things,” continued Dr Toro. “Therefore, there were just less acute stressors than on the guys on the tools who didn’t have that job security.” Outside of work and away from the family, the group also formed
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enduring social bonds by organising events and trips away that also had a protective effect. The findings align with the CIPD’s idea of Good
Work and potentially some of the intentions behind the new Employment Rights Bill announced in October, coincidentally or otherwise, on World Mental Health Day. They also highlight what global mobility teams know about the value of safeguarding the mental wellbeing of relocating employees with proper contracts and terms, and the potential for cross-sector collaboration and practice sharing, which the HCLG is looking for as it moves into the project’s next phases. Moving from an individual, cost-based and circular
conversation around mental wellbeing in construction – and in the wider world of work – and towards collaborative, evidence-based action is therefore happening in the sector. The end goal? Helping people feel they have a voice and agency and incorporating welfare and wellbeing approaches straight from induction. “It’s about moving the industry in step; establishing
common requirements, being held to those requirements by our clients, and ensuring that we in turn audit our supply chain against those requirements,” said Jim Beestone.
“ When we look at some of the statistics, people in construction don’t take time off work and potentially get to a point of crisis. We keep on talking about the fact there is a problem and not doing anything about it.”
HENRIETTA FRATER, HEAD OF HSE & WELLBEING, THE CROWN ESTATE, A TRUSTEE OF MATES IN MIND & CO-CHAIR OF THE HCLG
GLOBAL LEADERSHIP WELLBEING
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