Civil Service People Survey 2012 Wellbeing: a toolkit for action February 2013

Civil Service People Survey 2012

Wellbeing: a toolkit for action

February 2013

Cabinet OfficeCivil Service People Survey 2012: Wellbeing 2

Contents

Wellbeing in the Civil Service People Survey 3-5

What do the wellbeing questions measure? 6-8

Acting on your results: five action points for wellbeing 9-17

Further wellbeing resources 18-21

Cabinet Office 3Civil Service People Survey 2012: Wellbeing

Wellbeing in the Civil Service People Survey

Cabinet OfficeCivil Service People Survey 2012: Summary of findings 4

Measuring wellbeing in the CSPS shows us what the individual gets out of our work on engagement

Engagement is a measure of an employee’s emotional response to working for their organisation, evidence shows that higher engagement is correlated with improved outcomes for the organisation as well as enhanced levels of wellbeing for the individual.1

Experiences of work

Employee engagement

Organisational performance

Employee wellbeing

Our traditional description of the benefit of focussing on employee engagement has tended to focus on the organisational benefits...

...research shows that work is a key influencer of individuals’ levels of

wellbeing, but in order to understand our impact we need to measure it.

1. A review of the latest evidence on the relationship between employee engagement and organisational outcomes can be found at: http://cdn1.engageforsuccess.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/The-Evidence.pdf which follows the 2009 Government commissioned report MacLeod D and Clarke N (2009) Engaging for Success: Enhancing Performance through Employee Engagement, London: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.


Wellbeing at work is the consequence of an interaction between the working environment, the nature of the work and the individual.

Responsibility for improving wellbeing should sit at the organisation level; we should also encourage employees to take responsibility for their own wellbeing.

Promoting wellbeing in the Civil Service will benefit our employees and set an important example

“A government lead in promoting wellbeing in its own workforce would

be win-win: besides benefiting the considerable number of public sector employees and the performance of its

own business, it would set an important example to the private

sector.”Foresight Mental Capital and Wellbeing

Project, 2008

Cabinet Office 6

What do the wellbeing questions measure?

Civil Service People Survey 2012: Wellbeing


The wellbeing questions measure our employees’ levels of individual subjective wellbeing

Measuring our employees’ wellbeing shows that this is something we care about, above and beyond what they can contribute to the business.

Subjective wellbeing concerns people’s self-reported wellbeing, aiming to measure how people think and feel, rather than relying on objective indicators (such as educational achievement, employment, or material wellbeing).

Survey questions that ask people to evaluate their own wellbeing allow for individual differences in terms of values and identity to be expressed. For example, one person may feel that their salary has the greatest impact on their life satisfaction, while for another, family relationships may be more important.

The wellbeing questions can be used in conjunction with the existing engagement questions to provide us with a more complete picture of Civil Servants’ psychological health at work. This will allow organisations to develop interventions that will deliver benefits at both the organisational and the individual level.


The four wellbeing questions are used by the ONS to measure national subjective wellbeing. They were developed with expert academic advice and represent a balanced approach to the measurement of subjective wellbeing, drawing on three main approaches.

The evaluative approach asks individuals to step back and reflect on their life.

The eudemonic approach measures individuals’ sense of meaning and purpose in life.

The experience approach seeks to measure people’s positive and negative experiences over a short timeframe to capture people’s wellbeing on a day-to-day basis.

They comprise evaluative, eudemonic and experience approaches

Approach Question

EvaluativeW01. Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?

EudemonicW02. Overall, to what extent do you feel that the things you do in your life are worthwhile?

Experience W03. Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?

Experience W04. Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?

Eudemonic wellbeing focuses on self-realisation, and defines wellbeing in terms of the degree to which a person is fully operational. It evolves from pursuing contexts and relationships that fulfill intrinsic human needs while continually extending the self.

For the ‘experience approach’ questions, the adjective ‘happy’ has been chosen as it is commonly used for positive affect questions; ‘anxious’ is widely used as an indicator of poor mental wellbeing (e.g. in the European Social Survey).


Acting on your results: five action points for wellbeing


We have put together five action points for wellbeing, along with ideas for how to implement them and relevant case studies from within government.

The action points cover universal and targeted approaches, and include actions which can be undertaken by organisations (‘downstream’) and individual employees (‘upstream’).

Action points one and two are directly focused on wellbeing, while action points three to five address the broader workplace factors which impact on wellbeing.

Our five action points provide a range of approaches the Civil Service can take to promote wellbeing

Action point Type of intervention

Promote health, wellbeing and resiliencePhysical/mental health and wellbeing

Provide good specialist support for physical and mental health conditions

Physical/mental health and wellbeing

Foster an organisational culture of participation, equality and fairness

Organisational culture/ health and wellbeing

Prioritise good managementOrganisational culture/ employee engagement

Create good workOrganisational culture/ employee engagement


Action point 1: promote health, wellbeing and resilience

Raise the profile of the importance of mental health and wellbeing at work.

Provide regular wellbeing or stress audits or screening through available psychometric tools and resources (e.g. NHS wellbeing tool [see the additional wellbeing resources]).

Use nef’s Five Ways to Wellbeing to support individuals to take action to improve their own wellbeing. The Five Ways are: Connect, Be active, Take notice, Keep learning, and Give.

Focus on information transfer and knowledge provision through campaigns, events, articles etc.

Facilitate adoption of the Five Ways through schemes encouraging exercise, volunteering, healthy eating, knowledge sharing etc.

Consult and engage staff to develop a simple menu of wellbeing activities and options.

Strengths-based work: encourage staff to exercise their character strengths for a short period (there are strong links between strength-based approaches and employee engagement).

Ensure a safe and pleasant physical working environment.


DWP aims to make working for the Department a rewarding and productive experience by improving the health, wellbeing and engagement of its staff; and providing a healthy, safe and supportive environment in which to work. It has implemented a dedicated wellbeing strategy to ensure this is done.

DH has made a commitment that it will ‘practice what we preach’ on wellbeing. it was the first department in Whitehall to sign up to the Time To Change pledge on 10 October 2012, and its Minister for Care Services is the cross-government champion to encourage OGDs to sign up.

DH has also established a Health and Wellbeing Board, chaired by a Director.

Case studies: promoting health, wellbeing and resilience

DWP wellbeing strategy

DWP supports employees in the management of their ill health or rehabilitation through:Effective use of Attendance Management policiesProactive OH ServicesMaximising EAP provision Promoting use of DWP Physiotherapy Advice Line (PAL)

Risk focused health and safety policies to prevent, remove, and reduce workplace factors that cause ill health and injury.

Promoting healthy lifestyles through: online information; supporting line managers to promote HWB; and provision of Lifestyle Management Programmes.

DWP’s health and wellbeing strategy has helped to reduce sickness absence from 11.1 AWDL in 2007 to 7.3 AWDL in 2012. Wellbeing levels have remained stable, despite a period of significant change and uncertainty.

DH communications, events and tools

DH hosts a health and wellbeing (HWB) staff network including HWB Champions, and provides access to occupational health services and counselling services.

The department links with partners to cheaply offer wellbeing workshops, stop smoking services, physical health check events and an annual fair on HWB.

It has introduced a Carers’ Passport, encouraging discussion with managers on how employees with caring responsibilities can balance work with care.

DH’s 2012 CSPS results have shown a 5% increase since 2011 in positive responses to their question specifically asking whether the department does a good job of promoting wellbeing.

DH Health and Wellbeing Board

The Board oversees five work streams: Transition-specific support interventions Emotional and Psychological Wellbeing; Physical Wellbeing Workplace Wellbeing ‘Practising what we preach’

It works with key partners such as NHS Choices, HASSRA, Change4Life, the Charity for Civil Servants, Rethink Mental Illness, Mind, and Time to Change.

Soon, DGs will be asked to nominate a health and wellbeing sponsor to help promote a culture that enables HWB within their Directorates.

DH Management and Leadership Development Programmes for SCS1 and Grades 6 & 7, and for HEOs and SEOs will include a health and wellbeing module.

Health and wellbeing will be incorporated in DH’s management skills workshops.


Action point 2: provide good specialist support for physical and mental health conditions

Ensure staff have access to good facilities and support including HR, Occupational Health, Employee Assistance Programmes, counselling, CBT providers.

Ensure strong support is available for employees experiencing stress or anxiety, e.g. counselling, or stress management training (through Occupational Health (OH) and primary care support services).

Improve integration of primary care and OH services to support mental health and wellbeing, including working relationships between OH providers and employers.

Intervene quickly when things go wrong, e.g. if an employee experiences stress, anxiety, or occupational ill-health.

Introduce proactive absence management procedures, such as ‘fit’ notes, improved access to advice and support services, management training in absence management, rehabilitation and job retention.

Harmonisation of OH and EAP

DWP are leading on a programme of work sponsored by CO to harmonise and modernise Occupational Health (OH) and Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) provision across the Civil Service in a single framework.

The tender specification explicitly required suppliers to support the government’s wider wellbeing at work agenda. DWP will partner with suppliers to ensure services continue to be aligned to the principles of CS Reform, Next Generation HR and other cross-government initiatives.

Following an extensive tendering exercise, in Oct Government Procurement Services (GPS) announced the winning bidders as follows: Lot 1 (OH): Health Management; Atos Healthcare; Capita Lot 2 (EAP): Atos; Health Management; Right Management; CNLR.

The next phase is on-boarding of departments onto the Framework, who will join it as their current contracts expire. GPS will take the lead in this, conducting departments’ mini competitions and bundling departments together as appropriate to ensure that our large customer base can bring down the cost of our services.


Action point 3: foster an organisational culture of participation, equality and fairness

Support employees to be positive about others’ work abilities, including opposing discrimination based on mental or physical health status, and developing mentoring and coaching.

Change the way we think and act about mental health: sign up to the Time to Change campaign, led by Mind, Rethink and the Institute of Psychiatry.

Promote awareness and understanding about mental health issues, and challenge discrimination and stigma.

Ensure all employees have an equal opportunity to participate in approaches to promote wellbeing (especially part-time workers, shift workers, and migrant workers).

Use nef’s Five Ways to Wellbeing to instigate a shift in thinking and approach to mental health: integrate the Five Ways into staff inductions and training sessions.

Promote testimonials and leadership team endorsements; these are important in helping others overcome taboos about discussion of mental health issues.

DVLA Changing Minds

DVLA is aligning with national campaigns on mental health to address stigmatisation and promote more open discussion of the importance of mental wellbeing.

Board level support has been obtained to develop the Changing Minds campaign and the COO has agreed to champion it.

DVLA has developed a dedicated intranet site with information, advice and resources on mental health, and a two hour master-class for managers. Recovery sessions have also been offered to support those with personal experience of a mental health issue.

Under development are an individual e-learning package; follow-on sessions for managers; and a programme of activity to embed learning.

Since DVLA launched the campaign in January 2012, a 28% decrease in absence lost to mental health issues (to 31 October 2012) has been evidenced in comparison with the same period in the previous year.


Action point 4: prioritise good management

Ensure all managers are effective and supportive: good management competencies include participation, delegation, constructive feedback, monitoring and coaching.

Use the HSE’s stress management competency indicator tool, which lists management competencies for preventing and reducing stress at work.

Training for managers in social and interpersonal skills, recognising the impact of management on employee health and wellbeing.

Managers should be sensitive to indications of mental distress, and open to discuss and resolve issues early. They should also understand when to refer employees to professional or other sources of help and support.

Managers should develop their emotional intelligence (EI), involving self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

Managers’ ability to manage teams with flexible working patterns should be developed.

Recruitment, development, rewarding and promotion of managers to recognise and promote supportive management skills.

Ensure the organisation has visible senior leadership, accountable managers, and systems of monitoring and measurement that embed continuous improvement.


DFID has created a foundation for emphasising good, supportive management by introducing a staff engagement exercise as a mandatory part of its Senior Civil Servant recruitment process.

To develop and embed supportive management behaviours, HMRC has developed the People Impact Assessment (PIA), a two-level tool that ensures people impacts are considered and acted on during planning and implementation of change.

Case studies: prioritising good management

DFID SCS recruitment exercise

DFID has introduced a staff engagement exercise as a mandatory part of the SCS recruitment process.

The candidate’s objective is to interact with a small group of staff acting as their ‘new team’, to better understand a set of recent People Survey results and identify some possible actions.

This exercise is assessed together with the other elements of the recruitment process to determine whether the candidate’s leadership competence is sufficient to be considered eligible for any SCS post in DFID.

The DFID Management Board was delighted with the process, and with the standard of the successful candidates, all of whom demonstrated effective staff engagement, management and leadership skills.

HMRC People Impact Assessment

The PIA was developed to help leaders and managers think through the implications of change as part of HMRC’s work to improve levels of engagement.

It provides a guide for leaders and managers that prompts and signposts, and assurance at strategic level that people impacts have been identified and considered alongside other impacts, such as financial and performance.

The PIA guide has been available to everyone in the department since 12 August 2012 via the Engagement Toolkit intranet pages. The HMRC Employee Engagement Team are also offering a master class on engaging people with change based on the PIA.

Feedback to date has been positive. It has shown that the PIA has been used as a planning tool for Senior Leadership Teams, and as a guide to plan local implementation of changes.


Action point 5: create good work

Integrate wellbeing approaches into business as usual: use nef’s Five Ways to Wellbeing as a tool for consultation, to influence service delivery approaches, or to embed improvements in partnership working.

Ensure job design that recognises ‘good work’ principles, including strong relationships; fairness (procedural justice); meaningful, secure work; autonomy, control and task discretion; balance between effort and reward; and learning and development.

Provide staff with the right to request flexible working arrangements, such as part-time working, home-working, job sharing and flexitime. Promote an organisational culture that supports flexible working.

FCO business efficient flexible working

Many FCO staff, at all levels, have agreed flexible working patterns which meet the overarching business need. The FCO makes clear that although flexible working is suitable for many posts, it is not suitable for every job or individual and it must fit in with business and operational requirements.

The department has identified several key considerations that influence the success of flexible working: vision, culture, process, property, technology, and awareness of security considerations.

The FCO has a ‘Flexible Working Network’ which aims to offer workers or staff considering flexible work support and informal advice; an online toolkit outlines clear guidance for staff and managers.

The FCO has identified several key benefits of business efficient flexible working: increased efficiency, productivity and morale; more efficient use of office space; global coverage; supports diversity; and business continuity (e.g. when big events affect local infrastructure).

The department will, where it meets the business need, encourage staff to continue to think about maintaining this flexibility as a part of the FCO and Civil Service Olympic legacy.


Further wellbeing resources


1. Identify issues and vision

2. Develop business case

3. Create programme

4. Dedicate resource

5. Communicate and launch

6. Manage programme

7. Measure impact

1. Identify the perceived issues and programme vision: measure current levels of wellbeing and engagement, and establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

2. Develop a robust business case to gain senior buy in.

3. Create a programme tailored to your business objectives: know your business environment, align health and wellbeing to your business strategy, and clarify your programme’s objectives. Align your wellbeing to your engagement strategy to ensure a truly strategic and coordinated approach.

4. Dedicate resource to your programme: evaluate your current resources and find the right business partners to deliver your initiative (internal, external or both).

5. Communicate and launch your programme through a variety of approaches, such as posters, regular updates/features (e.g. on the intranet), email bulletins, training, staff events, informal interactions.

6. Ongoing programme management.

7. Measure the impact of your intervention and adjust your approach accordingly.

The wellbeing literature outlines a ‘wellbeing improvement cycle’, consisting of seven stages. It is suggested that a successful high-level wellbeing strategy should follow these steps.

The literature provides advice on how to implement a successful high-level wellbeing strategy


We consulted with a cross-government group of Civil Servants who suggested wellbeing interventions that could be taken at the lower level, within individual departments. These include providing training on resilience, mindfulness and stress, specific support for staff networks, and line management and leadership development.

Civil Servants across government have identified ideas for lower-level wellbeing interventions

Trial health and wellbeing kiosks/ Wellpoint machines

Would provide a range of physical health metrics for individuals to track overtime and as well as provide aggregate statistics for departments

Potentially self-financing if coin operated for a small fee.

Mindfulness workshops and leadership training

NICE approved approach to improving wellbeing. Strong opportunity to use RCTs to test their impact.

Integrate wellbeing into existing CSL curriculum for leadership development.

Bespoke health and wellbeing plans and team building initiatives

IT packages exist that give staff access to individual health and wellbeing assessments, from which personalised plans can be developed.

Wellbeing and engagement are influenced by the relationships between team members, particularly levels of trust.

Line management competency frameworks and development

Integrating external wellbeing competencies into existing Civil Service frameworks and training for line managers.

Stress training and specific support for staff networks

A range of learning modules on stress already exist on Civil Service Learning (CSL).

Explicit support to specific staff networks to help them improve their members’ wellbeing.

Resilience training

EAP providers could potentially offer resilience training as part of their offer or as an additional cost.

95% of Civil Service to be covered by new EAP/OH framework by the end of 2013, and providers have to demonstrate they are supporting staff wellbeing.

Evidence from UKBA suggests resilience training may be popular.


There is a wealth of useful online wellbeing resources, for both employees and organisations

The NHS provides a self-assessment wellbeing tool, which can be used by individual employees:

NHS wellbeing self-assessment tool: http://www.nhs.uk/Tools/Pages/Wellbeing-self-assessment.aspx

Organisations will find resources from nef, HSE and DWP useful:Aked, J., Marks, N., Cordon, C. and Thompson, S. (2008), Five Ways to Well-being: The

Evidence, New Economics Foundation (nef): http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/five-ways-well-being-evidence

HSE Line Manager Competency Indicator Tool: http://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/furtheradvice/managementcompetencies.htm

DWP fit note: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/fitnote/

Tools for developing a business case for wellbeing are available from DWP and NICE:DWP workplace wellbeing tool: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/health-work-and-well-being/our-

work/workplace-well-being-tool/

NICE tools and resources on promoting mental wellbeing at work, including business case, costing template, and slide set: http://guidance.nice.org.uk/PH22

Documents

Civil Service People Survey 2012 Wellbeing: a toolkit for action February 2013