The Government’s publication of the Keep Britain Working report from Sir Charlie Mayfield has drawn comment and reaction from the recruitment and HR sector on the potential benefits of better managing the workforce’s health.
“A new partnership between business and the public sector to tackle ill health that prevents work is the right approach,” commented Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) Chief Executive Neil Carberry. “Our forecasts shows that the cost to the economy of failing to tackle workforce challenges of all forms could add up to £39bn every year. If we can unlock even just a portion of that, we’ll see better jobs, better pay and an improving economy and fiscal picture.”
Carberry said the report acknowledged that tackling economic inactivity cannot be left to government alone. However he said there was a feeling that businesses have too often been talked at by government rather than worked with. “Today is a welcome change of tone,” said Carberry, “We hope it will be followed by more practical business engagement in the weeks to come.”
One priority highlighted by Carberry is to tackle NHS waiting lists. “To achieve this, the government must prioritise value not ideology in how it staffs NHS hospitals,” he said. “Aiming to end agency use is pushing up costs and reducing service quality. In the spirit of the Keep Britain Working Review, we must encourage skilled professionals to keep working for the NHS, in whatever way they choose and can manage, to treat patients faster and get patients back into the workforce and more productive. It’s time to talk about how we make this happen.”
Meanwhile the CIPD asserted that the report’s findings needed to be backed by policy makers with support to businesses.
Peter Cheese, chief executive of the CIPD said the report’s reccomendations: “have the potential to support and incentivise many more employers to make the changes in people management and development practices that can improve people’s health at work.
“However,” he added, “the report’s success will depend on the extent to which these recommendations are understood by business in driving positive outcomes and backed by policy makers at a national and regional level. In particular, it will be crucial that the first phase of implementation leads to the provision of more cost effective and accessible quality occupational health services for SMEs.”
Cheese said the CIPD will be engaging with its members in the people profession to support the ‘vanguard phase’ and develop the Workplace Health Provision and guidance needed to improve health and business outcomes.
Elsewhere the Business Disability Forum (BDF) welcomed the focus on workplace adjustments but described the overall report as “a missed opportunity” that does not solve the problems facing today’s employers.
“Workplace adjustments are key to the retention of disabled employees and helping them return to work and we know too well that, at the moment, getting adjustments is inconsistent and difficult,” said Angela Matthews, Director of Research and Public Policy at BDF. “We are therefore pleased to see adjustments at the centre of this report. We are also pleased to see the call for a “people-focused, needs-led system”, rather than approaching situations by specific condition.
“But neither of these principles are new,” she emphasised. “In fact, they are basic employment law. Nevertheless, they remain rarely adhered to, and we know that even many disabled employees are unaware of the breadth of their rights at work.”
Matthews said that employers want to know what good looks like citing one employer as saying: “The government can’t just say ‘develop inclusive practices’. What are they? What do you want us to do?”
Matthews says regular mention of ‘good practice’ and no attempt to explain what this is does not support employers to achieve what the government is asking of them.
“There is a place for high-level and long-term thinking, definitely. But employers wanted, needed, more and sooner,” she said.
