The University of Nottingham is part of a consortium led by Lancaster University in a £1.8 million project, exploring how to promote sustainable work through healthy psychosocial work environments.
The psychosocial work environment refers to organising and managing work in a healthy and fair way, underpinned by a supportive social work environment. Sustainable work refers to developing workplaces and jobs that help people stay healthy throughout their working life.
The consortium of UK universities led by Lancaster University, includes the University of Nottingham; Queens University Belfast; and Birkbeck, University of London, has received a Work and Health Research Award from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), designed to facilitate ambitious projects to tackle priorities in work and health research.
The UK is facing a crisis, with 2.78 million people out of work due to ill-health, at an estimated employer cost f £18.8 billion per year and additional NHS and welfare costs.
The sharpest increase in the last decade has been driven by mental health conditions.
Research shows that poor mental health affects workers across all age groups and backgrounds, often combining with physical health conditions to make employment harder to sustain. The impact has been particularly pronounced among young people, with mental ill-health recognised as a contributing factor to the UK reaching a record one million young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET), costing the economy £125 billion per year.
We invest significant effort in assessing the work environment only after problems have already occurred. This reactive approach means harm has already been done and workers have already suffered."
