Corporate report

Disability, mental health and wellbeing: DfT staff report 2019

Published 28 October 2019

Introduction

In the Department for Transport (DfT), we are committed to creating a positive and inclusive culture, and believe the mental health and wellbeing of all our staff is essential to this. We need to make sure those staff who are disabled, or have mental health issues, are not left behind in the workplace and receive a level of support which allows them to thrive and flourish.

The Thriving at Work review, published in 2017 and led by Dennis Stevenson and Paul Farmer, set out recommendations for how to enable employees with poor mental health and wellbeing to thrive at work, and how they could best be supported by their employers. As a department, we are dedicated to achieving the recommendations set out in the review.

In November 2018 the government launched a new framework 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. This is DfT’s first annual report on Disability, Mental Health and Wellbeing and has been produced in accordance with the guidance on voluntary reporting. Our report concerns the 2,837 staff in the Department for Transport central (DfTc), which does not include our agencies and other public bodies. DfTc is based primarily in London, with regional offices in Hastings, Swansea, Southampton, Farnborough and Derby. We hope this highlights the positive steps that have been taken to achieve these aims and an understanding and acknowledgement of what we can do to improve in the future, so that we and our staff can thrive and work to the best of our abilities.

As this is our first report, we would welcome any comments or thoughts before our next report, which will be published in 2020. Thank you for reading.

Clive Maxwell, DfT Health and Wellbeing and Disability Champion

Disability

Disability Confidence

In March 2017, as part of the government’s Disability Confident Scheme, DfT were among the first departments to achieve Disability Confident Leader Level 3, the highest level of qualification, and by implication, an inclusive work environment for those with disabilities is a top priority. Our department seeks to positively influence those attitudes and behaviours which may negatively affect employee experiences, primarily through learning opportunities. Civil Service Learning gives those working in DfT the opportunity to take part in e-learning courses on disability confidence, which include videos of DfT staff talking about how their disability affects them at work.

DfT has also consulted with the Business Disability Forum, who were positive about our approach for disabled candidates and in January 2019, DfT staff attended a ‘barriers to recruitment’ training course. We seek to be disability confident from the beginning of our application process, and so all applicants are encouraged to declare their disability status and discuss any workplace adjustments they may need. Our recruitment processes are in line with the Commissioner’s principles and DfT Auditors regularly complete audit reviews.

Declaration Rates

In March 2018, 74% of our staff disclosed their disability status, an increase in 4 percentage points (pp) from the previous year. Of those who disclosed their disability status, 7% identified themselves as having a disability or health condition, less than 1pp change from the previous year. In 2018, the Civil Service average of those identifying as having a disability was 10% and so there is still progress to be made within DfT to match this figure. This information is also provided in DfT’s Equality Monitoring Report 2017 to 2018.

Support Available

A Workplace Adjustments Passport is available to individuals to simplify conversations about reasonable adjustments with their line managers. This is a key way in which staff with disabilities can be individually supported and this passport can be applied across government departments to enable a simple transfer of workplace adjustments.

Our Diversity and Inclusion strategy: Different People, One Team showed that we are seeking to achieve better representation of staff with disabilities in the Senior Civil Service and its feeder grades, and are making progress in these areas a priority. We recently rolled out our Ascend Sponsorship Programme, which pairs DfT Senior Civil Servants (SCS) with ethnic minority and disabled Grade 6 and 7s. This Sponsorship Programme aims to help those who are disabled to be successful in progressing their careers, through endorsement from their SCS sponsor. Our Ability Staff Network also offers the opportunity for reverse mentoring. Senior managers can be paired with mentors who provide insight into working in DfT with a disability, helping to develop understanding to better enable managers to support their staff with disabilities.

Employee Engagement

DfT shares blogs and articles on our intranet to bring attention to national campaigns and share personal stories, to help engage disabled employees and to raise awareness in the department.

Our department has a number of staff networks who provide support to help the welfare of employees. In 2017, our dedicated disability network Ability launched their Ask. Listen. Act. Movement. This movement aims to define what Disability Confidence means to its members and give a practical model for positive conversations and actions around disability:

• ask - if anyone in your team has additional needs – make this a normal question and it will become easier for everyone to speak up
• listen - to what disabled people tell you – listen to their views and understand how disability affects them and what they need to be included; understand too that they might not want to talk about it, and that’s okay, especially if they know that if they change their mind, you’re ready to listen
• act - on what they tell you, and champion their and others’ needs

In August 2019, DfT launched its first Neurodiversity Staff Network. Neurodiversity is an umbrella term, including autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and others. This network seeks to support colleagues with neurodiversity; improve wider understanding and knowledge and build confidence. DfT launched Fair Treatment Ambassadors in January 2019, a staff-led group of volunteers who work within the department. They support and empower staff, offering impartial guidance, including explaining formal and informal procedures for taking action and signposting them to the range of support options available.

The annual Civil Service People Survey is also used to measure engagement. The results for the DfT’s 2018 People’s Survey showed a gap in engagement between staff with disabilities and staff without disabilities. Those who identified as disabled were shown to be 58% engaged, whereas those who did not identify as disabled showed an engagement level almost 10% higher, at 67%. There are still steps to be taken so that the workplace can be more engaging for disabled employees, and this is a priority for progress in our Diversity and Inclusion strategy for the immediate future.

Disabled staff report higher levels of bullying and harassment, and our Fair Treatment Ambassadors are trained to signpost individuals to help resolve issues around bullying and harassment, which should help those with disabilities feel supported and empowered and reduce the engagement gap.

DfT, with the Business Disability Forum, ran a confidential disability survey for those with a health condition or disability to identify what is helping inclusivity and what is hindering it, giving staff an opportunity to anonymously share what they thought would help. This survey had high engagement, and once the results have been fully analysed, we will be able to feedback learning points.

Mental Health and Wellbeing

Positive Steps

Between August 2018 and August 2019, 2,434 working days were lost in DfTc due to reasons related to mental health and achieving positive mental health and wellbeing for our staff is a key priority for our department. Our department promotes an open culture, and we are committed to combating the stigma surrounding mental health, so colleagues feel valued and can be open about their wellbeing needs. To help achieve this culture we have regular blogs written by staff, including senior colleagues, sharing their experiences with mental health and wellbeing, to educate others and normalise these issues. The blogs are published on our intranet, accessible to all employees and usually receive excellent hit rates.

Our staff networks are actively involved in our wellbeing agenda: we consult with them on new initiatives and they help to raise communications for awareness days and weeks. Our in-house Wellbeing Buddy Network is a staff-led network of trained volunteers with personal experience of mental health issues. They are a listening service, providing a judgement free ear and where necessary, will refer on to other sources of support. In addition to this, we also have Mental Health First Aiders, who are qualified volunteers from within our department. While our Buddies provide long term peer support, Mental Health First Aiders provide support to those in immediate distress and can refer them onto longer term sources of support.

Support Available

DfT has a number of sources of mental health support. Our Occupational Health (OH) service can be accessed by all and if line managers are unsure of how to proceed, DfT’s intranet contains a step-by-step guide on how to make a referral for members of their team. We also have an independent Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) which is accessible to staff 24/7 through either phone or online. Our EAP provides access to several different forms of support such as: bullying and harassment support; whistleblowing services; management support services; coaching and counselling; mediation; trauma and critical incident support, among others. To supplement this support, counselling including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, is also available through the telephone, online or at a location convenient to the employee, usually within 5 days. Between June and August 2019 there were 35 uses of our EAP, 80% of which were in relation to emotional wellbeing.

To give our staff an easy reference and details of all wellbeing support services available, we produced a pocket guide in the style of a Z card designed to fit into a phone case or security pass holder, to help staff quickly identify which service is most suited to their need.

Wellbeing Confidence

Our Wellbeing Action Plan was launched in 2017, to help managers and employees begin ongoing conversations about wellbeing. This tool has both a quick guide and a more comprehensive document for those who want an in-depth understanding. Line managers who think they would struggle with these conversations can also call our HR Advice Service and speak to staff who are able to provide coaching on this.

Our in-house Wellbeing and Leadership training for SCS focuses on leadership behaviours which encourage good wellbeing in teams and emphasises that a focus on wellbeing is not a luxury, but an investment in top performance. As of July 2019, we have trained 50% of our SCS, 83% of whom have rated it as excellent/very good/good and 89% would recommend to a colleague. We have also recently rolled out internal wellbeing sessions for our line managers, so that all DfT employees are empowered by this training. DfT is also taking part in a wellbeing pilot, to develop a suite of interactive tools that teams can use flexibly to support and develop their wellbeing team culture. We are also hosting a series of stress and resilience webinars.

Wellbeing Data

The DfT People’s Survey in 2018 had questions designed to show the Proxy Stress index and the PERMA index of our employees. PERMA is a theory of wellbeing and a model for positive psychology. The acronym stands for the five elements it includes:

• positive emotions
• engagement
• relationships
• meaning
• accomplishments

The PERMA index indicates the level to which employees are thriving in the workplace, and was 74% in 2018 for DfT. This was down 1pp from the previous survey but was in line with the average for the Civil Service in 2018. The Proxy Stress index is associated with the Health and Safety Executive’s stress management tool, and the department’s 2018 result was relatively low at 27%. While this was an increase of 1pp from the previous survey, it was 2pp lower than the Civil Service 2018 average.

Our People Survey results show a slight decrease in wellbeing engagement in the areas measured. This could be indicative of the level of change and uncertainly our staff have experienced as a result of EU Exit preparations and our office refurbishment programme, and shows that we still have progress to make.

People Survey Wellbeing Scores

Question	2014	2016	2018
Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? (% positive)	65%	67%	67%
Overall, to what extent do you feel that the things you do in your life are worthwhile? (% positive)	73%	73%	71%
Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? (% positive)	62%	67%	65%
Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday (% negative)	31%	28%	31%

Next Steps

We will be refreshing both our Diversity and Inclusion and Health and Wellbeing strategies to ensure we are doing the best that we can for our employees. We will also be reporting annually on disability, mental health and wellbeing to monitor our improvement in these areas.

Our Diversity and Inclusion strategy: Different People, One Team, published in 2018, set out the disability outcomes we are aiming to achieve by 2021, which are reflective of the areas of improvement identified in this report:

• reduce the gap in engagement scores for disabled staff, particularly for those whose disability has a greater impact on work
• increase the representation of disabled staff in our senior leadership
• strengthen our talent pipeline for disabled staff (grades 6 and 7)
• provide expert workplace adjustments across DfT
• build line manager disability confidence

More about our Diversity and Inclusion strategy.

A number of disability inclusive initiatives have emerged in response to the publication of this strategy. There are plans to design and deliver Disability Confident Line Manager Training, through a joint initiative between HR, the Ability Network and SCS Disability Allies, so that disabled colleagues can be appropriately supported and understood by their direct management. As part of our commitment to improve representation in the SCS, there is a strategy to ensure diverse interview panels for SCS recruitment, through including an SCS or a Grade 6/7 panellist with a disability or who is an ethnic minority.

Our Mental Health and Wellbeing strategies are similarly being refreshed and updated. We plan to: identify mental and physical wellbeing as separate but connected strategic pillars; review the structure of our Mental Health First Aiders and our Wellbeing Buddies to ensure we are making progress and these networks are achieving their aims; develop a health and wellbeing dashboard which will enable us to ensure we are strategically using our sick absence and wellbeing statistics; and develop a more strategic approach through our delivery partners, such as our EAP.

While we are proud of the progress that has been made in developing support and confidence for those with disabilities and poor mental health and wellbeing, we are aware that there are areas in which we could improve. We are striving to make progress so that DfT can lead the way for inclusivity and positive working environments and be a great place to work.