Mental health guidance

The importance of supporting the mental as well as physical health of workers is becoming more and more obvious to employers. To assist employers to provide such support, advisory, conciliation and arbitration service Acas has issued guidance on reasonable adjustments that might be appropriate. It points out that reasonable adjustments are changes an employer makes to remove or reduce a disadvantage related to someone's disability.

'Disability' is defined as a mental or physical impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a person's ability to carry out day-to-day activities. Some people might not recognise their mental health condition as a disability, but it's important that employers are aware that it could be.

The law (Equality Act 2010) says that employers must make reasonable adjustments for:

• workers
• contractors and self-employed people hired to personally do the work
• job applicants.

Employers must make reasonable adjustments when:

• they know, or could reasonably be expected to know, someone is disabled
• a disabled staff member or job applicant asks for adjustments
• someone who's disabled is having difficulty with any part of their job
• someone's absence record, sickness record or delay in returning to work is because of, or linked to, their disability.

Employers should try to make reasonable adjustments even if the issue is not a disability. Often, simple changes to a person's working arrangements or responsibilities could be enough to help them stay in work and work well.

Acas suggests examples of reasonable adjustments for mental health including:

• changing someone's role and responsibilities
• reviewing working relationships and communication styles
• changing the physical working environment
• policy changes.

Supporting employees with their mental health can be a hugely sensitive area and could have serious consequences if an employer gets it wrong, no matter how well meaning they might be. Training is at the heart of ensuring that support is offered in an appropriate manner, and taking specialist employment advice would be a good starting point.

To discuss this or any other employment matter, contact us.