Service with a smile

Law firms invest huge amounts of money in recruitment and training and provide generous benefits packages, but, on the whole, they expect their partners and staff to be responsible for their own health and well-being. Working for a law firm can be demanding, involving long hours and tight deadlines, and although firms may offer much support, people are often too busy to take advantage of it. Ill health can create a real financial challenge for law firms. Not only do they have to pay for sick leave, but there is also significant cost through loss of resource when people cannot work.

We have pre-empted government recommendations on health and well-being at Denton Wilde Sapte. In 2009 we took a strategic decision to provide an enhanced support programme, which enables our partners and staff to flourish. This easily accessible programme is designed to free staff up to concentrate on providing the best service for our clients and working efficiently for the firm. The firm is already renowned for its caring organisational culture, and so the health and well-being strategy is considered a logical development of that culture, naturally fitting in with what the firm stands for.

The introduction of GP ‘fit notes’¹ in April 2010, where doctors are able to advise people who are on sick leave for over seven days whether, with extra support from their employer, they could return to work earlier, illustrates the importance of health and well-being to the economy. This is in line with recent national policy initiatives such as the Foresight Project on mental capital and well-being²; Dame Carol Black’s report Working for a Healthier Tomorrow³; and the NICE Guidance on promoting mental well-being at work⁴. These have recommended that organisations should promote health and well-being, not least because it plays an important role in motivating employees. The guidelines suggest that employers should consider health and well-being strategically, and that responsibility for this should be taken at Board level.

We recognise the importance of providing clear, authoritative information and easy access to support, and this is at the heart of our Healthy Balance Programme. We noted that, while the Internet has become a major source of health information, there are no guarantees that online information is accurate. When it comes to the provision of information, however, we have always been aware that we have to achieve a balance. We don’t want to add to the ranks of the ‘worried well’, and we believe our partners and staff just need access to the facts, so they can make their own decisions about their health. We can then provide them with enough support to enable them to do something about their concerns.

Fun of the fair

2010’s programme was launched in January with a Health and Lifestyle Fair in the firm’s London office. The fair featured stands dedicated to health and fitness, as well as social and creative activities. The Foresight Project’s research identified five ways to well-being: connect; be active; take notice; keep learning; and give; and we used this as the fair’s theme. With a wealth of information, giveaways and demonstrations, we used this event to encourage an interest in health and well-being, as well as to show partners and staff what is available to them. The programme is UK-wide, and we will now be holding similar events at our Milton Keynes office, starting with a fair in June. We provide the same benefits and support to all partners and staff, regardless of seniority.

Stress test

Denton Wilde Sapte has a pragmatic Board, which is forward thinking and open to new ways of doing things, and we get total support from our chief executive Howard Morris and our department heads. Margaret Brooks, director of HR at Denton Wilde Sapte, says: “This freedom has enabled us to implement important programmes which will provide long-term health and well-being benefits to the firm.”

One example of this is our recent in-house training for managers on preventing stress. In March 2009 I attended a presentation by fellow occupational psychologist Emma Donaldson-Feilder and her team. Their research into preventing work-related stress was sponsored by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and Investors in People, and it offered some interesting insights into how manager behaviour can prevent work-related stress. I thought this was useful and incorporated the findings into training sessions for managers and supervisors before the HSE had even published information about the research.

We recognise that excessive levels of long-term stress can lead to illness and has a serious impact on people’s ability to do their jobs properly. In our view, if you support people by giving them tools to help them cope with stress and anxiety, they will be more productive and satisfied with their roles. Training managers to understand when someone is struggling with their health, and especially with stress, has become an important part of our health and well-being programme. Our training programme helps our partners and managers to identify the multiple causes of stress, and shows them how their own behaviour can prevent unnecessary work-related stress.

The Healthy Balance Programme continues throughout the year now, with a particular emphasis on mental well-being. We plan to announce at least two events each month, such as lunchtime talks, seminars or new services. We also provide relaxation skills workshops twice a week. Some people attend once or twice to learn what they can and take the information away with them. Others attend regularly, because it provides a welcome window of relaxation in an otherwise busy week. We also have a private GP and physiotherapist surgery available within easy walking distance of all our London offices, and this can be used to supplement the NHS GP service. This allows people to get the medical care they need in the most time and cost-efficient way. In addition, this year we have introduced two new services: in-house chiropody and dieticians.
The take-up on these has been encouraging, even though, unlike many of the services on offer, they are not free. When we do have to charge for services, we have been able to negotiate competitive rates with the health professionals concerned, however, and it is cheaper to use our in-house services than look elsewhere privately.

Externally, the Healthy Balance Programme is also supplemented by the firm’s Employee Assistance Programme, which offers telephone and face-to-face counselling, as well as a very useful online information service on a whole range of subjects. This is a good first port of call should people come to us with stress-related problems. This all fits seamlessly into our innovative benefits package. I have worked with our benefits team over the last 10 years, and we have been responsible for designing a series of ground-breaking initiatives. Denton Wilde Sapte was one of the first law firms to establish a systematic, long-term approach to workstation assessments in 2000 - and to introduce flexible benefits in 2003. In 2007 we introduced our Healthy Balance Programme, spear-heading health and well-being at a time when this was not seen as particularly important. We are convinced that all this has increased employee engagement. We are now in the enviable position of having years of experience in this area while many organisations are playing catch up.

Our workstation assessment system has proved to be an invaluable tool in monitoring and addressing stress and other work-related illnesses. The key to its success is flexibility. Whenever possible we assess in person, and it is a dynamic process that we have been able to develop over the years. The assessment is vital when it comes to the transfer of information. How can we be sure this works? We still have the odd work-related musculo-skeletal condition, but it is increasingly rare, and we are able to identify it swiftly as soon as it becomes a problem. Consequently we no longer lose people to long-term musculo-skeletal conditions. We manage to keep people in work, but above all we prevent them from becoming ill in the first place. Our insurance companies have noticed the difference and our premiums have been reduced as a result. This is tangible evidence that the system works.

People need a point of contact to speak to when they are in distress about their health, and HR is able to provide this. We have regular contact with partners and staff. Meeting people, even for a few minutes, provides us with an opportunity to explore health and well-being issues in a discreet way. We would rather know that someone is experiencing problems, so that we can provide them with the support they need, as in our experience these problems rarely go away without support. Once we are sure that people are managing without further assistance, we step back. Getting the balance right is difficult but important.

We have developed the assessment to include questions that reflect the main sources of work-related stress (reflecting the HSE’ guidelines on stress), and so we now have a ‘rolling audit’ of the ‘stress climate’ at the firm. Using the information purely statistically, we are able to identify particular problems and any stress hot spots. Constantly monitoring the health and well-being of our partners and staff enables us to understand where we need to focus our resources.

Some dismiss health and well-being as the ‘flavour of the month’, and there has been a recent flurry of publicity surrounding this, especially since the economy went into recession. Every business is looking to reduce costs and improve returns on investment and Denton Wilde Sapte is no different. The Government’s 2009’s Labour Force Survey highlighted that the two most damaging causes of ill health were work-related stress, depression or anxiety and musculo-skeletal disease⁴. Denton Wilde Sapte has been systematically tackling musculo-skeletal disease for the last 10 years, but we are not content to rest on our laurels. In health and well-being new problems arise just when you think you are getting to grips with one issue.

In these difficult economic times, programmes like ours have to be costed carefully, but the good news is that they are relatively inexpensive. When it comes to returns on investment it is difficult to estimate, but even if we manage to reduce ill health by 10 per cent, we are talking about considerable savings.

Firms cannot force people to look after their health and well-being, but if they provide them with the right environment and support they will flourish. As a psychologist, the prospect of refining and targeting our Health and Well-being Programme is exciting. I am delighted to be part of a team that recognises the challenges ahead.

References

1. www.dwp.gov.uk/fitnote

2. www.foresight.gov.uk;

3. www.workingforhealth.gov.uk;

4. www.nice.org.uk

Carole Watling is a chartered occupational psychologist working for international law firm Denton Wilde Sapte as health and well-being officer with the HR department. She is also an active member of the British Psychological Society’s Working Group on Health and Well-being.