Since the Covid-19 pandemic gripped the UK, along with the rest of the world, a great deal has changed in the facilities management sector.
The workplace has been redefined; it is no longer essential to travel to the office to do a day’s work that many can do equally well remotely. The workplace has become a more fluid concept, and technology has quickly developed to support and protect people wherever they happen to work – whether that means daily meetings via Teams or Zoom, or touch-free devices to minimise our contact with communal areas in buildings.
While there has been a great deal of attention on people’s physical health, the importance of mental health has also come much more to the fore. In the early days of Covid-19, many people had no choice but to work at home. For many, that meant little or no human interaction during the working week. While this was essential in shielding from the virus, the effects on people’s mental health were often far-reaching. Thankfully, this has helped mental and physical health to be discussed in the same breath.
Premier Technical Services Group Ltd (PTSG) has an award-winning approach to health and safety, which is illustrated through its achievement of ten RoSPA Golds and distinction from the British Safety Council. In tandem with this, HSE Director Terry Wilcock and Group NVQ Assessor Paul Campbell have made mental health a corporate priority. Ultimately, this means addressing physical and mental health as one.
In 2018/19, stress, depression or anxiety accounted for 44% of all work-related ill health cases and 54% of all working days lost due to ill health. That equates to 17.5 million working days.
More than one in six adults experience a common mental health problem at any one time. In a company the size of PTSG, which employs over 2,300, that equates to around 400 people.
While PTSG has a diverse workforce in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexuality and disability, the majority of its workforce – particularly its site engineers – are male. That’s why a robust approach to mental health support is vital.
PTSG has long been an advocate of providing mental health support in the workplace. The Group’s HSE Director, Terry Wilcock and NVQ Assessor, Paul Campbell began delivering Mental Health First Aid Training in the early part of 2020.
They presented the concept behind mental health first aid, enabling people to be proactive in offering help and support to colleagues. As a result of the course, Paul Campbell achieved the qualification Mental Health First Aid Trainer through Mental Health First Aid England.
Both Paul and Terry are qualified Mental Health First Aid Trainers – and over 20 other people in the Group are now qualified as Mental Health First Aiders. This gives every one of the 2,300+ individuals spread throughout 47 UK locations access to an expert – their first port of call in addressing their issues.
People routinely approach PTSG’s Mental Health First Aiders for help. This is a real culture change and clear proof that Terry and Paul’s work is paying off.
Paul Campbell, PTSG’s NVQ Assessor, said: “Over the course of our work we have seen an evolution in how our leadership team views workplace well-being, with the focus shifting from the reactive management of sickness absence to a more proactive effort around employee engagement and preventative initiatives. This shift has given us the impetus to look at the mental health of our people from a different perspective – with an increasing acknowledgement that we need to do more to support the entire team.
“Ultimately, I want every single person at PTSG to feel they can approach our trained and qualified mental health first aiders without any judgement from anyone – just care and support. Then, I can be happy we have achieved our goal.”