Mind matters: construction workers reply to CN’s mental health survey
Wates’ Group Safety, Health, Environment and Quality Director John Dunne spoke to Construction News on the steps Wates has taken to tackle the stigma of mental health in the workplace.
The interview was part of CN’s Mind Matters survey which found that 59% of industry workers did not tell their employers the real reason they needed time off if it was for mental health reasons.
Responding to the survey, Dunne said he was ‘disheartened’ to learn that many in the industry still feel that they cannot talk to their employers. He said that larger contractors had worked hard to put systems in place for mental health care, with Wates seeing a decline in anxiety and depression related absences since the introduction of extra support.
What we have found is that a lot of people certainly up to two years ago would not report stress or anxiety as a reason for being off. They would tend to cite headache, cold or flu, or [their] back because they didn’t want to talk about it. Whereas now what we’re seeing is more people are open to talk about it, so we can actually tackle it. And that helps get people back to work. That’s why we think it’s gone down the sort of list in terms of sickness absence cases.”
If you don’t investigate those reasons, if you don’t follow up and find the true reason why they’re off, you’re never going to be able to tackle the mental health, depression [and] anxiety issues. As a manager, it is the worst thing to hear that somebody is off work and work has caused that stress. We haven’t any right to cause that stress and anxiety, to make people feel like that.”
As an industry, we are now trying to sort that out for the people that work for us. It is incredible to think that organisations like ourselves are doing the work to support the people that are working for us that the government should be doing.”
John Dunne
Wates’ Group Safety, Health, Environment and Quality Director
