Employers ill-equipped to take on staff with mental health problems

Government efforts to move people off benefit and into work risks failure unless employers get more support to recruit and retain staff with mental health problems, the Disability Rights Commission has said.

A poll by GfK NOP for the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) of small and medium businesses found that two thirds of those surveyed have no procedures in place for managing staff with mental health problems. The survey also indicates that managers are more reluctant to provide workplace adjustments for new staff with a mental health condition than they are for existing employees.

The DRC's findings are a wake-up call for the government aiming to get one million incapacity benefit claimants - forty per cent of whom have a mental health condition - back to work.

Bert Massie, Chairman of the DRC said: "We need to recognise that mental ill health is now operating as a badge of exclusion from the labour market in the same way that race and gender once did. If the Government's welfare reform programme is to succeed it needs to tackle this lack of confidence among employers about recruiting staff who have a mental health condition. If employers had better advice and support they would have less fear about employing someone with a mental health problem - and employees in turn would be less fearful of disclosing their condition. Workplaces infused with fear are not good for anyone - the employee, the employer or the bottom line."

More information from the Disability Rights Commission