MENTAL HEALTH APRIL 2020
MANAGING
MENTAL HEALTH
IN MANUFACTURING
The coronavirus outbreak and wider economic concerns may leave
people feeling helpless, and their mental health could su er. What
can employers do to make their sta feel reassured during tough times?
BY JILL MEAD, FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, TALKOUT
According to a report by Make UK, more
than 60% of manufacturers assess the
risk of physical injury and promote
better physical safety, but fewer than
15% assess mental health risk and
only one in fi ve invest in measures to
promote mental health.
For an industry that employs 2.7 million
people, this simply isn’t good enough. And
with statistics indicating that one in four of us
experience mental health issues each year and
that mental ill-health is responsible for 72 million
working days lost (https://bit.ly/2vQ5bfX), it’s clear
that more needs to be done.
Mental health at work
As well as having a duty of care towards employees,
looking after the wellbeing of your workforce
makes commercial sense. A healthier workforce
means a more engaged and productive workforce,
which is ultimately good for business and the
bottom line. But, despite growing media attention
and conversation around mental health, our recent
piece of research looking at
the state of mental health in
the workplace (covered on p11,
MM Nov/Dec 2019 – https://
bit.ly/39BsmJB) shows that
the UK still has a long way
to go in tackling stigma and
discrimination.
Perhaps the most shocking
statistic of all to come out of
the research was that 51% of
UK senior managers admit they
would consider a worker with a
mental illness to be a ‘liability’.
It will come as no surprise, then,
that 68% of workers believe if
they told their boss they were
struggling from some form of
mental health issue, it would
have a negative impact on their
job. The report also revealed
that 64% of Brits claimed
to have pretended to have a
Over half of
UK managers
would consider
a worker with a
mental illness
to be a ‘liability’
physical ailment to take sick
leave, when instead they were
struggling mentally, and over
a third worried it might refl ect
badly on them if they were
honest about their situation, so
instead decided to stay quiet.
What’s more, 45% of
workers said they’d seen
someone pushed out of their
job because of their mental
health issues, and 6% of British
workers who opened up to
their boss about mental health
issues believe they lost their
job over it.
Is manufacturing
more at risk?
Every industry has its own
unique set of challenges when
it comes to managing mental
health – and manufacturing is
no diff erent.
Male-dominated industries
in particular can face
diffi culties because men are
generally less likely than
women to seek help for their
mental health, making it
challenging for line managers
to spot the signs in male
colleagues. Men are also three
times more likely than women
to die by suicide, making it
even more crucial that we
create open, non-judgemental
environments, and give men
the tools they need to talk out
in the fi rst place.
In the manufacturing
industry, long hours, excessive
noise, little daylight and
repetitiveness can contribute
About TalkOut
TalkOut is the voice for mental health in the workplace and has one mission: to make it OK not to
be OK in the workplace. Working hard to break the stigma around mental health in the workplace,
TalkOut aims to disrupt the way mental health is viewed and encourage businesses to take the
mental health of their employees just as seriously as their physical health.
Qualifi ed in clinical psychology, psychological therapies and counselling, TalkOut delivers credible,
practical and e ective training and strategies to help businesses and individuals cope with stress
and mental health issues in the workplace. A team of passionate changemakers, the TalkOut team
use their own experiences of mental health combined with their professional expertise to shift the
way mental health is viewed and treated in the workplace.
www.talkout.org.uk
30 www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk
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/www.talkout.org.uk
/www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk