A new set of workplace wellbeing guidelines has just been released, bringing psychosocial risk further into the conversation about how organisations create healthy, sustainable and productive work.
The UK’s Duty of Care Guidelines developed by the Policy Liaison Group on Workplace Wellbeing, set out 9 areas organisations should consider when creating healthy, sustainable and productive work.
One of these areas is Psychosocial Risk Identification and Prevention, focusing on understanding and addressing the risks created by how work is designed, organised and managed.
For organisations responsible for Health & Safety, wellbeing, HR or workplace risk, this is an important area to understand.
In A Hurry?
If you’re in a hurry, you can download the full Duty of Care Guidelines HERE and come back to the key points when you have more time.
For organisations responsible for Health & Safety, wellbeing, HR or workplace risk, the release of these guidelines provides an opportunity to take a closer look at how work is designed and where action may be needed.
Workplace Design: Looking Beyond Wellbeing Initiatives
If you already have wellbeing initiatives, an EAP, mental health training or other support in place, that’s a great start.
But the guidelines encourage organisations to look more closely at Workplace Design itself.
This means considering how work is designed, organised and managed, and whether those conditions may be creating or contributing to psychosocial risk.
The nine areas in the guidelines provide a useful framework for organisations to consider different aspects of Workplace Design, from governance and job quality to worker voice, inclusion, support, measurement and prevention.
At the heart of this is a practical question:
Do you understand how the way work is designed may be affecting the mental health of your people?
The 9 Areas of the Duty of Care Guidelines
The guidelines cover nine key areas:
- Designing Work So It Does Not Harm: Governance, Purpose and Primary Prevention
- Aligning Work Design With Organisational Purpose and Values
- Psychosocial Risk Identification and Prevention
- Healthy Work Design and Job Quality
- Worker Voice, Participation and Co-Design
- Inclusion, Equity and Fairness
- Support as Back-Up, Not Substitute
- Measurement, Monitoring and Learning
- Prevention, Not Promotion Only
Together, these areas provide organisations with a framework for thinking about Workplace Design, prevention and the conditions that support healthy, sustainable and productive work. roles, departments and working environments.
Download the full Duty of Care Guidelines
The new guidelines cover 9 areas relating to healthy, sustainable and productive work.
If you want to explore the full framework and understand the recommendations in more detail, you can download the complete PDF here.
We recommend taking the time to look through all 9 areas and consider what they could mean for your organisation.
How can organisations understand your Psychosocial Risk?
At Mental Health Courses, we believe that effective prevention starts with understanding the risks. This is one of the reasons we developed Mental Health Risk Intelligence (MHRI).
The new Duty of Care Guidelines were one of the sources that helped inform our MHRI system, which helps organisations understand their mental health risk profile and identify where action may be needed.
If you’re wondering whether MHRI could be suitable for your organisation, you can take our Suitability Checker.
What comes next?
The release of the Duty of Care Guidelines provides an opportunity for organisations to take a closer look at Workplace Design and how psychosocial risk is identified and managed.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be exploring each of the 9 areas in more detail, including what they mean, why they matter and what they could look like in practice.
Because having mental health support in place is important.
But understanding the psychosocial risks that may be affecting your people is an important part of prevention.
If you’re not sure where to start with psychosocial risk in your organisation, please get in touch with our team. We can help you answer all the questions related to mental health risk assessment in your workplace.