Exploring leadership and construction workers mental wellbeing

Kenneth Lawani*, Billy Hare, Iain Cameron

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

It is estimated that over 2.7 million workers are employed in the UK construction and cases of mental health and wellbeing of workers have not been adequately addressed compared to the strides made regarding worker safety and accident prevention. There has been an upsurge in the number of workers experiencing anxiety, stress and depression and these are the precursors to suicides in construction. It is believed that larger UK construction companies have strategies or interventions in place to address mental health and wellbeing in the workplace but the SMEs and self-employed still face uphill task in initiating and implementing any of such strategies. It is estimated that 60% of workers in the UK private sector work for an SME and one in 10 SMEs have OSH support mechanisms in place compared to eight in 10 large organisations. This study adopted a purposive sampling strategy with self-selecting respondents. A self-administered questionnaire benchmarked against the mental health core and enhanced standards tools adopted by the ‘Stevenson/Farmer review of mental health and employers’ served as the basis for the study. The study focused mainly on 37 construction workers using content analysis to assess the levels of supportive environment available to manage the risks to worker’s mental health and findings indicate that the role of leadership in the implementation and communication of mental health work plan, raising the level of mental health awareness among employees and encouraging open conversations reduces stigma and discrimination within the workplace.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCIB World Building Congress 2022
Place of PublicationAustralia
PublisherPurpose-Led Publishing
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 29 Mar 2022
Event22nd CIB World Building Congress - RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Duration: 26 Jun 202230 Jun 2022

Conference

Conference22nd CIB World Building Congress
Abbreviated titleWBC2022
Country/TerritoryAustralia
CityMelbourne
Period26/06/2230/06/22

Keywords

  • leadership
  • construction workers
  • mental wellbeing

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