Please note this episode contains discussions around mental health and mentions suicide.

When you think of health and safety in construction the first thing that probably comes to mind is PPE and incident reporting.

But what about the psychological wellbeing of workers on site?

In this episode of Beyond The Build you'll hear from Ros Barrows, the group Head of Health, safety and Wellbeing for Kier, Jon Davies, the CEO of the Australian Constructions Association, and Bill Hill, the CEO of the Lighthouse Club, the Construction Industry charity.

They discuss the shocking statistics around mental health in the construction industry and what is being done to improve it.

Please note this episode contains discussions around mental health and mentions suicide.

Don't forget you can find out more at kier.co.uk/podcasts

KIER Ep 3 Psychological wellbeing in construction

[00:00:30] This is an incredibly important and serious topic isn't it? I was reading some statistics in terms of the UK construction sector, which are just absolutely staggering. The construction sector in the UK has the highest suicide statistics with two workers taking their own life every day.

[00:01:08] Jon Davies: Yeah. It's not good is it Louise? And unfortunately this isn't a thing that's just limited to the UK. The statistics that we have here in Australia are depressingly similar. Here we talk about the fact you are six times more likely to die from suicide in the construction industry in Australia than you are from a workplace incident, and also you are twice as likely in the construction industry to take your own life than any other industry in Australia.

[00:01:48] And Ros, obviously the stats suggest that people in the construction are more affected by psychological ill health. Why do you think that is?

[00:02:00] Rosalind Barrows: Yeah, I think it's generally one, there isn't the focus, right? If you think about the efforts and energy we put into the safety side of health and safety, yet there's no parity between the health side.

[00:02:45] Louise Bloxham: And Jon, you are, you're nodding. Do you feel it's, is it similar in Australia in terms of the causes do you think, or Is it different?

[00:03:27] And I think the, probably the other big thing is here that unfortunately, and this is where I think our statistics align very well again, is that we're a very male dominated industry here in Australia. It's only 12% of our workforce women. And unfortunately without trying to stereotype too much, men don't generally speaking, aren't great communicators.

[00:04:06] Louise Bloxham: It's interesting you say that, isn't it? Because actually, yeah, I'm sure we've all heard that assumption, if you like, about, about men not being great communicators and being less comfortable with talking about, say how they're feeling and mental health and so on. But actually, when you look at it in terms of construction it's played out in cold hard facts, isn't it?

[00:04:50] Rosalind Barrows: Yes, it's changing because we're realisng that breaking down stigmas is the first and most vital part of improving psychological ill health and wellbeing. So we're getting people to share their stories, which is making other people think that's how I think and feel, so I'm not on my own. There are other people going through this that I can talk to. And if we look at the partnership Kier now has with the Lighthouse Club, that's absolutely a wellbeing measure that's been needed to be taken for a long time because we've focused on office workers and reducing stress, depression, and anxiety there.

[00:05:45] Jon Davies: Yeah, sure. I think there's a few issues here.

[00:06:10] And what the culture standard aims to do is really address some of those key root causes and as the name suggests it's bundled up around the idea that we really need to improve the whole culture of the industry and the culture standard also importantly is a top down approach to doing that.

[00:06:52] So this body came together and identified there were three key things for a more sustainable industry. One was all about capability and capacity. One was about commercial frameworks, improving commercial frameworks. And the final part was the culture piece, improving the culture of the industry. And they set up the construction industry culture task force.

[00:07:43] And then the final component of that is the diversity and inclusion piece. If we can get more women into our industry, then the culture of the industry, I think everyone agrees will be a lot better. But that's a bit of a chicken and egg situation because the main thing that's stopping women coming into our industry is the poor culture that we have.

[00:08:27] So it will need, for example, to provide flexible working opportunities, look to potentially cap the hours that are worked, will look at health and wellbeing wellness initiatives, and also look to address things like gender pay gaps within their organisations, but also look to put in diversity and inclusion plans.

[00:09:04] Jon Davies: Look, it's early days, Louise, to be quite frank. What we've done now we've started with five trial projects in New South Wales and Victoria.

[00:09:34] And again surprise surprise! The early feedback that we're getting here is that it doesn't take any longer to do the projects. It doesn't cost any more money because our people are more productive.

[00:09:59] Rosalind Barrows: Yeah. So similar but different. Focuses for the UK where I think we would see greater movement forward are where we focus on those causes of psychological ill health outside of the project and support individuals there. So if we think about Jon talked that generally this is a male dominated environment and boys don't talk, so we need to get to the root of what's causing first of all, the anxiety, the stress, the depression, that then leads to suicidal thoughts and then ultimately death by suicide. And if we focus on that we've got prevention rather than intervention.

[00:10:51] Do you see that the sort of those bodily physiological safety has more of a focus than say, mental health and wellness?

[00:11:45] So roughly speaking £4 billion a year. And that is an attempt to start to measure the impact to this, obviously from a dollar and cents perspective. But unfortunately, a lot of the time that's what gets the attention and it's certainly got the attention here in terms of providing the business case why we need to do something about this.

[00:12:33] And in Australia, through the culture standard it sounds like certainly at an industry level, that sort of really strategic level, you're coming together to do that. But Ros have we gotten hold of this issue in the same way in the UK? Do we need to learn lessons from Australia, where are we on that sort of curve?

[00:13:29] I think the problem that we have in industry is we're asked to report on, or it's expected that we will report on those safety stats. The number of riddor reportable in the UK incidents. There's no need to report on psychological stats, so we don't delve. If we are more creative with that data and delve into it to find what we have, then we can concentrate on those causes and go back to that idea of prevention.

[00:14:31] Louise Bloxham: So in, in terms of that focus and that identification, then are we at a point where we know what we should be focusing on proactively so it's less about the reactive.

[00:15:05] Louise Bloxham: We touched on this at the start Jon I think you, you touched on this at the start, we know that our sector can be physically demanding. Is there anything that we need to do at the design and contract phase to mitigate the impact of that, which can obviously then have an impact on wellbeing.

[00:15:43] And it's because of people rushing out before we've worked through properly, worked through the job, worked out how it, how much it's gonna really cost and how long it's gonna really take. And then all of a sudden everyone's under the pump from day one trying to make these unrealistic cost and time outcomes, and now it is, I think in a lot of cases as simple as that.

[00:16:33] But if we can see ultimately this change in approach with construction because it's impacting on our ability to invest in important things like the health and wellbeing of our workforce, the training and the skills of our workforce, the productivity of our industry, innovation in our industry. If we wanna see change in all of those areas, unfortunately, I think we need to really look at how our industry operates in all aspects of our industry.

[00:17:20] I think there are nurses, physio, we've got men's health, women's health all sorts of different wellbeing services available on this site, I guess to account for the fact that it is quite an isolated site. So is it difficult to replicate that kind of focus on, say, a smaller site or a more urban site? Does it have to be one of these big, out of town sites to be able to do that?

[00:18:31] Louise Bloxham: affiliated with.

[00:18:55] Jon, can I ask you first?

[00:19:21] We need to share that information. We need to get better.

[00:19:32] Rosalind Barrows: Yeah. So my, this is really for wellbeing strategists out there rather than the common man or woman. But when I first started on my wellbeing career one of my team who became an awesome mentor to me said, if someone were in front of you having a heart attack, you would call for an ambulance.

[00:20:04] Louise Bloxham: Continuing our conversation now on mental health and wellbeing in the construction industry. And I'm really pleased to be joined today by Bill Hill. And Bill, you are the Chief executive of the Lighthouse Club. Thanks very much for joining us.

[00:20:18] Louise Bloxham: So before we talk about the subjects, can you give us a little bit of background on yourself and how you've gone from working in huge blue chip organisations to the charity sector and more specifically mental health and construction.

[00:20:53] I was a rugby player as a young man, and so I'd always been supporting a charity called The Wooden Spoon, which is the children's charity for rugby. And then I got myself in a position in my career with technology that the company I was with got bought by a bigger American outfit. And it just happened that the role of the CEO of The Wooden Spoon came up at the exact same time which I grabbed it with both hands.

[00:21:38] My dad was a lighthouse keeper so I just thought I've got to go for this. And I thought genuinely it was about building lighthouses. I thought lighthouse construction. I didn't know they were building lighthouses anymore, but I went along to the interview with my dad's lighthouse cuff links on, and I got the job, I think on the basis of the cuff links to be fair.

[00:22:27] The psyches are very similar. So it was quite easy to segue from the background of what we're doing with the previous charity.

[00:22:47] How does the Lighthouse Club, how is it aiming to help address this really important issue?

[00:23:09] And the industry started to say what the heck do we do about this? And it was getting then the research behind that to see what kind of problem have we got? But our mission statement our vision is in the charity is that no construction worker, or their family, should be alone in a crisis. That's our vision. So what we are trying to do as a charity is to give a whole surround sound of opportunities for anybody in the industry to be able to access support services. To get the help and support they need.

[00:23:54] I think we have got all the services we can possibly have now. I think they are really good and they're very solid and they can take volume. But the big problem we've got in the industry is twofold. One is overcoming the stigma. And 87% of the population in construction are men and we are not very good about talking about our mental wellbeing and opening up.

[00:24:32] o those are the two major things that we've got to overcome to make the breakthroughs that we need. And then secondary to that that, that might stop or help alleviate today's problem.

[00:25:07] And we've got to unite as an industry across the whole piece here and also we've got to raise it just above mental ill health as well. Because it's only part of the, your overall wellbeing is your mental health, because it's your physical health and your financial health and your environment you work in as well.

[00:25:55] It's about a basic standard. A basic humanitarian standard for all of our workforce. We should set a standard in there to which nobody can fall below or no, no site can fall below

[00:26:19] Bill Hill: I think they have. I think the industry is definitely seeing this as a major challenge to resolve. And many of the companies that we are working with have got, the most amazing wellbeing programmes. But sometimes it could be shortsightedness in that as well, because in the sense of, oh yeah all our employees are fine.

[00:27:03] The people and other people are coming to sites, then the penny drops and goes, ah, I see where you're coming from now. And it's about how do we get that all surround sound in a site so that everybody's looked after. And that, that's where I think some of the companies can be quite myopic, but my people are okay.

[00:27:48] So the very large proportion of these people have got nowhere to turn to. So how do we say, okay. For your employees, that's fine. You've got this extra level of, we're talking about the base camp and the summit. They're above base camp, but we need to make sure that everybody comes on site gets that, I'm probably lose losing the analogy now, but get that base camp support that, that safety net support to a safety net to which they don't fall below.

[00:28:32] And I think they've got it and I think they've got it in even in Ireland, they're trialing four day a week now in some companies. And they're seeing productivity gains by having four day weeks. Because people are seeing that as well I'm going to work more productively and manage my time better in those four days so I can have that day off with my family and take some of the pressure off the family, et cetera, being away from home.

[00:29:17] And the second thing was the hygiene factors went through the roof, so the hygiene factors on site suddenly went through the roof. What does that do? It makes that a better place for women to work as well. And we need more women in the industry, desperately need more women in the industry. And again, I see a lot of great initiatives to try and get more women into the industry, which will make this a better place to work as well.

[00:29:58] I think is where we really need to make the big push.

[00:30:15] There's a standard, there's a plan if you like and a framework for that collaboration piece. Are we anywhere near that in, in the UK? Is that what we need or do we need a different approach here?

[00:30:35] I'm optimistic about what we can do. We've got a new program that we're trying to unify the industry called Make It Visible which is trying to pull the industry together around reactive support, which again, is well underway. We've launched a new portal called MakeItVisible.info which is just launched, which is a portal that any construction worker, can go on now and find information, advice, and guidance around emotional support, physical support, and financial support. And it gives them information, advice, and guidance, and also pathways to get support as well. So you've got that all in one portal. So we need to get that message out there.

[00:31:39] Cause that's even longer term change. So the Make It Visible task force is looking at those three elements there, they're reactive.

[00:31:50] Louise Bloxham: And obviously, you know what Kier is, we're working with with the Lighthouse Club. Now what do you need from your contractor partners like Kier, what's, what can we add, what can organisations like us add to the great initiatives and programs and so on that, that you are developing to really help drive that impact health on site?

[00:33:01] They talk through their story. They've had lived experience of mental health issues themselves. They are mental health first aiders as well. Then they talk through the stories and because they are tradesmen, there's a huge empathy with the people on the ground. And we get back to that conversation. We're breaking down the stigma and raising awareness. That program does it for me every single time because it gets the people talking and it raises the awareness of the services that are available to everyone. To get help and support. And if we can get that programme running throughout all of the sites around, around the UK and Ireland, then I think we will make some pretty big breakthroughs.

[00:34:12] What's that missing link? Because it's, the issue is clear and yet we, were not, we're not quite at that, we're not at the level of collaboration that we need to really get to grips with this, in a strategic way. So what would, what in your view would it take to make that happen?

[00:35:05] So I think apart from getting leadership and unity from the industry and there are some great elements of industry bodies that are getting behind this as well, which are, is really good to see. But we've got to get it from the client end as well, where the major projects that are getting put together have actually got more descriptive ways of what they are looking for in the way of wellbeing support for the workforces that come to work on the sites as well, rather than, "we want a wellbeing programme" that's too loose. You need to have some more, you need some standard in here.

[00:36:03] Louise Bloxham: Have you got any final thoughts or messages that, that you really want to leave our listeners with in relation to this issue?

[00:36:19] First of all is from the Samaritans always ask twice.

[00:36:40] The second one is seek to understand before you seek to be understood. It's so easy when you just listen to somebody to jump down their throat and say, here's the answer to the problem. And it's also listening nonjudgmentally as well. It's so difficult to do, not to put your own judgment on somebody else's problem, but just having that listening ear and giving them the time to do that.

[00:37:11] And the third one is from the Dalai Lama. And you'll just love this, which is always be kind. There's absolutely no reason to be unkind to another human being, especially if you're working in the same environment with them and you're trying to do the same thing as get a project done so be kind.

[00:37:39] Louise Bloxham: Thanks very much to all of our guests for sharing their expertise today. We'll be back next month with a new episode, but in the meantime, don't forget, you can hit subscribe on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts or find out more at kier.co.uk/podcasts