Transparency data

DWP 2021 voluntary report on disability, mental health and wellbeing

Published 5 October 2021

The Voluntary Reporting Framework was launched by the Government to encourage businesses to report how many of their staff have a disability or health condition, and also to report on the health and wellbeing of staff. The framework was created in partnership with employers and charities. The Civil Service as a whole currently reports against the framework in full – this report provides progress in DWP as at August 2021 in accordance with the guidance for voluntary reporting.

1. Introduction from DWP: Debbie Alder, Disability and Mental Health Champion and John-Paul Marks, Wellbeing Champion

This year, our role in supporting Britain back to work and being there for our most vulnerable customers has never been more important. Added to this, the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) means we have increased numbers of people relying on DWP for financial support. We understand it is really important to make sure we continue to make our colleagues feel safe, well and included while at work so that they feel best able to support DWP’s diverse range of customers in unprecedented times. To enable us to do this, we have fundamentally changed how we work, enabling colleagues to connect and collaborate virtually.

Through DWP’s wellbeing and inclusion strategies and frameworks, we continue to create a safe, healthy and inclusive environment. By prioritising employee wellbeing, encouraging and supporting healthy behaviours, we are supporting all colleagues to flourish and thrive; helping to ensure DWP is a great place to work. This is enabling business delivery and serving our customers well.

Our overall objective is to improve employee health outcomes by taking a proactive and preventative approach to wellbeing, and by doing this positively, contribute to the Nation’s health goals.

We continue to be recognised as a thought-leader in workplace wellbeing, and our wellbeing approach and achievements and innovative ideas and solutions are regularly published by organisations such as the Reward and Employee Benefits Association (REBA) and Business in the Community (BITC). DWP was also recognised in the RoSPA 2020 awards, winning the Health at Work Award for Management of Occupational Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

2. Voluntary reporting on disability

DWP is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader demonstrating the departmental commitment to attracting, recruiting and retaining disabled people, and supporting them in achieving their full potential.

Our achievements include:

• DWP re-accredited as Disability Confident Level 3 Leaders in November 2020, which demonstrates the departmental commitment to recruiting and supporting the career progression of disabled people.
• in November 2019 we launched a new national disability colleague network called ‘THRIVE’. Membership of THRIVE has grown to 1125 (August 2021), and we continue to support and grow the THRIVE network.
• developed a network of 1,619 Mental Health First Aiders, achieving our commitment to having parity with physical first aid.
• implemented the Accessibility Improvement Project (AIP) to improve the user experience of assistive software (AS). As a result, we have enhanced DWPs 1000 AS user’s experience by removing process and technology barriers, developing a brand new website and line manager toolkit, and rolling out a national AS user buddy system. A new project is underway to improve colleague capability is making products and meetings fully accessible.
• introduced a Workplace Adjustment Governance Board (GB) to oversee improvements to our workplace adjustment offer and that the issue is given importance at the most senior levels. Through the GB we have fully implemented 12 recommendations from an internal audit to improve the standard and consistency of workplace adjustments for everyone. This includes reviewing processes to reduce the time taken to implement workplace adjustments, enhancing our management information and creating a process to enable adjustments to be in place from day one.
• assessed all of our selection tools and checked all of our diversity and inclusion policy and guidance, including renewing our bespoke disability recruitment guide for vacancy holders.
• fully implemented both the ‘core’ and ‘enhanced’ Thriving at Work Standards, becoming a ‘green’ rated employer in 2019, which recognises our support for mental health in the workplace. We have subsequently signed the Mental Health at Work Commitments (led by MIND).
• we are an active partner-member of the Business Disability Forum, which ensures we are putting in place the best support for disabled employees and utilising a range of expert advice.
• we offer colleagues with hidden disabilities, including neurodiverse conditions, ‘Reflect and Protect’ sessions, providing a safe, confidential space to talk to a wellbeing practitioner in small peer groups, receiving immediate signposting and advice on adjustments and a follow up well-check 2-3 weeks later to ensure wellbeing is fully supported.

DWP collates data and information around disability employment internally through our self-service HR system. This enables voluntary capture of information with disability declaration levels including the SCS, currently at 92% as of June 2021. Disability representation levels across all grades at June 2021 is 18.3%, an increase of 0.1% at March 2021 We set targets, aiming for the on-flow of new entrants to the SCS to be 12% for disability by 2025, and are on track to meet this target reaching 10.8% (June 2019).

In the 2020 People Survey we know that 81% of disabled colleagues said they felt included and fairly treated compared with 92% non-disabled colleagues.

3. Voluntary reporting on mental health and wellbeing

In DWP our wellbeing framework is universal, offering something for everyone. It has been built on 4 pillars - ‘my body’, ‘my mind’, ‘my finances’, ‘my community’. It recognises the importance of all of these factors on our people’s mental and emotional wellbeing. Our strategy aims are to:

• educate and raise awareness through our topical health and inclusion campaigns, helping colleagues to look after themselves and others to remain at work and return to work more quickly with access to the right support.
• build a culture and environment where people are at the centre of everything we do.
• inspire and empower our people to make healthy personal choices about their own wellbeing and access the tools and specialist support provided by DWP.

Our Working Well Together Wellbeing Wheel demonstrates how all parts of our wellbeing strategy lock together.

A snapshot of wellbeing in DWP

Through our wellbeing and inclusion strategies we are empowering all our people to feel confident to talk about mental health and access mental health and wellbeing support. Our first-class Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) service offers a range of psychological support including structured telephonic support and face-to-face counselling, CBT – cognitive behavioural therapy and EMDR – eye movement de-sensitisation reprogramming. In addition, our new wellness platform gives colleagues real-time access to Coaches, including Mind Coaches, who can provide colleagues with techniques to build resilience and reduce stress levels for example.

Our achievements include:

• we have developed a network of 1,619 MHFA colleagues as of November 2020 who provide sign-posting to our EAP and other health and wellbeing services, including NHS primary care.
• we have embedded Mental Health Civil Service learning training into DWP’s new Leadership Essentials Programme.
• our campaign called ‘I Can Be Me in DWP’ is designed to help build an inclusive culture throughout the Department. This campaign encourages the sharing of personal stories about what makes them feel included and we have used the campaign to raise the level of conversation around mental health and wellbeing.
• we have run regular Wellbeing Pulse Surveys throughout the pandemic, gathering valuable insight which has informed a vast range of health and wellbeing support, helped identify our more vulnerable demographic groups and very effectively target support at these. Satisfaction with wellbeing support has risen by 11 percentage points to 76% since wave 4 of the Surveys.
• we have recently launched an innovative Burnout video, to help colleagues spot the signs that may lead to Burnout, offering helpful advice on how to prevent it and where to go for help and support.
• We have also introduced new Fatigue Assessments - available via our Occupational Health Service. This involves a 30-minute confidential call with an Expert who works with colleagues on a 121 basis to help nip signs of stress and fatigue in the bud before deep-rooted problems develop and set in. Follow up well checks are available 2-3 weeks later, ensuring colleague wellbeing is fully supported.
• we have launched a new Long COVID and Post COVID Syndrome Case Managed Service for colleagues who have a GP/NHS diagnosis of these conditions. This structured support helps colleagues with either of these conditions to overcome barriers and enable appropriate adjustments to be put in place during the recovery period.
• we have delivered large-scale, high impact wellbeing programmes, reaching around 40,000 DWP colleagues in the first quarter of 2021 alone; this has been achieved through delivering popular Virtual Wellbeing Roadshow events, alongside targeted Reflect and Protect wellbeing sessions and follow-up Well-checks (with an emphasis on mental wellbeing) to our most vulnerable employees in demographic groups including BAME, LGBT+, colleagues with hidden disabilities/neuro-diverse conditions, colleagues under 30, carers, colleagues in roles at risk of trauma, and more.
• our active Wellbeing Network of over 1,500 Advocates has been instrumental in embedding Working Well Together consistently across DWP’s 800+ sites. Our volunteers are responsible for implementing DWP’s Wellbeing Activity locally and sign-posting colleagues into our vast range of wellbeing services. We are implementing a network of regional Wellbeing Leads to offer strategic guidance to our established Advocates Network, bringing greater consistency across our sites.
• our Wellbeing Buddies offer a friendly listening ear, regularly reaching out to and supporting colleagues who have been feeling lonely or isolated.
• our wellness contracts are delivering sound return on investment with excellent clinical outcomes following treatment and high levels of user satisfaction, in excess of 90% across all service lines.
• impressive clinical outcomes post-counselling – 100% improvement in mental health scores following intervention.
• our new interactive wellbeing app and real-time wellbeing coaches are helping colleagues and teams to set goals and take small steps with expert advice to improve their wellbeing together; encouraging local ownership and empowerment to lead wellbeing improvement through positive team behaviours.
• our Wellbeing Confident Leaders workshop, DWP’s ‘go to’ wellbeing workshop, helps brings teams together, helping them get to know each other better and fully support each other’s wellbeing. In 4 months alone, 420 sessions have been delivered, reaching 10.5k colleagues.
• new return to the workplace wellbeing campaign developed to build psychological safety and resilience supporting colleagues and managers (in supporting their people) returning to the office.
• number of colleagues who have completed mental health learning (MHL):
• MHL for face to face Work Coach roles: Initial phase to existing Work Coaches was completed April 2019 and stood at 20,068 delegates trained as at 13 February 2020.
• MHL for non-face to face/telephony roles face to face learning: 9,168
• MHL for non-face to face/telephony roles e-learning (6-hour package): 7,851

Due to coronavirus contingencies being invoked, face to face MHL is yet to resume. Learning Design and Delivery are currently undertaking a review of MHL products, re-engaging with internal and external expertise to ensure relevance of content, with the aim of ensuring a consistent and standardised approach to MHL for all colleagues in Service Delivery. Future rollout of MHL following this review will capture all Work Coach colleagues employed into DWP since March 2020 and other service delivery roles.

In DWP we have a range of metrics in place to measure workplace wellbeing. These include our new Wellness Survey and Wellness Dashboard in addition to the Thriving at Work Standards and People Survey indicators including Office for National Statistics (ONS), PERMA (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishments) and Stress Proxy.

Wellness Survey

DWP was the first government department to develop a stand-alone Wellness Survey; a holistic diagnostic tool that looks across a range of factors that influence our feelings of wellbeing in the workplace which are health, security, environment, relationships and purpose.

DWP’s 2018 wellness score was 60% and was benchmarked against an overall cross-sector score of 64%. Our data insight has helped us identify areas where wellbeing challenges exist in DWP so that we can take action to improve workplace wellbeing. Our intention is to re-run the survey in future years to assess progress being made against our 2018 baseline score.

Wellness Dashboard

To ensure that we are measuring our progress regularly we developed a new Wellness Dashboard that is produced quarterly and shared with our executive team. In the last year we have reported that we’ve been consistently ‘orange – making progress’. Our aim is to be ‘green – doing well’ by December 2020.

People Survey

Between 2017 and 2018 personal wellbeing levels in DWP generally remained aligned to the median score for the Civil Service as a whole with levels of life satisfaction at 66%, happiness at 63% and sense that activities in life are worthwhile at 72%. The proportion of employees rating their anxiety as low has been largely stable. These changes are very small and overall the picture is of general stability.

Stress Proxy Index

We calculate a stress index score using the Civil Service People Survey questions aligned to the Health and Safety Executive Stress Management Standards. The higher the index, the more challenging the workplace environment is for stress. Factors include higher workloads, lower control over how work is done, and poor support from team and manager. The stress index increased by one percentage point in 2018 to 29% and is consistent with the median score for the Civil Service.

PERMA Index

Since 2016 we have been monitoring an index of ‘flourishing’ by combining five Civil Service People Survey questions related to five dimensions of flourishing - Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishment. In 2018 DWP employees had a PERMA index score of 74%, consistent with the median score for the Civil Service as a whole. This score represented a reduction of one percentage point on 2017.

4. Our key priorities

In DWP we’ve made excellent progress over the last 12 months, which has been achieved against a back-drop of unprecedented change and uncertainty. We recognise there is a critical need to sustain this focus over the coming months and years and to continue to invest in the development of positive mental health, wellbeing and disability inclusion for our people and teams.

Our immediate priorities over the next 6-12 months:

• we have developed and launched a Disability Action Plan for 2021 that includes a focus on leadership confidence, improving our workplace adjustment provision and mental health support.
• we are developing an overarching communications strategy that nudges colleagues into taking pro-active action to improve their wellbeing and into the support available.
• DWP will continue to raise mental health and disability issues through our internal blogging and colleague events, highlighting inspiring personal stories which enable conversations to take place and reduce the stigma around these topics.
• we will deliver on Mental Health at Work commitments.
• we will continue to directly target new and exclusive wellbeing support and communications at groups at risk (e.g. under 30’s, disabled colleagues, LGBT+, BAME, carers, colleagues with hidden disabilities or neurodiverse conditions, senior leaders.)
• work in collaboration with resourcing colleagues and Business Disability Forum to review perceived barriers to progressions for disabled colleagues. Focus groups and interviews will be held to understand the experiences of successful and unsuccessful disabled candidates.
• we will continue to monitor progress of new entrants against SCS on-flow targets - 12% by 2025.
• we will continue to support and develop our 1600+ MHFA community.
• we will strategically review our Wellbeing Advocate Network. New initiative to buddy-up Advocates with colleagues helping to keep people connected and supported informally with their wellbeing.
• implement a new suite of wellbeing interventions to support colleagues with the broad wellbeing challenges that have emerged (e.g. mental wellbeing assessments, COVID recovery programme.)
• we will implement a new suite of wellbeing interventions to support colleagues with the broad wellbeing challenges that have emerged (e.g. mental wellbeing assessments, COVID recovery programme).
• we will build Wellbeing Confidence at every level, through Wellbeing Confidence training for all.
• we will take a co-creation approach to developing the new wellness contracts for 2022 and beyond to ensure we build what is needed for the future in a re-designed world.

We will next provide a report in September 2022.