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 language | English |
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Title of host publication | CIB World Building Congress 2022 |
Place of Publication | Australia |
Publisher | Purpose-Led Publishing |
Publication status | Accepted/In press - 29 Mar 2022 |
Event | 22nd CIB World Building Congress - RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia Duration: 26 Jun 2022 → 30 Jun 2022 |
Conference
Conference | 22nd CIB World Building Congress |
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Abbreviated title | WBC2022 |
Country/Territory | Australia |
City | Melbourne |
Period | 26/06/22 → 30/06/22 |
Keywords
- leadership
- construction workers
- mental wellbeing