Claire Tyers

For the first time, stress has been identified as the most common cause of long-term sickness absence. This is according to a Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) survey. Public sector respondents identified organisational change and restructuring as the number one cause of stress at work. To find out more use this link: CIPD/Simplyhealth Absence Management … Read more

Claire Tyers of Research Partners presented the results of her research into the Occupational Health (OH) provision on the Olympic Park construction project to a HSE facilitated group this week. The CONIAC working group, composed of union, industry and professional representatives as well as OH and Occupational Hygiene professionals, were interested in the results which … Read more

The Employers’ Forum on Disability (EFD) has launched its new Disability Standard. this is an online management tool and benchmark which business can use to measure and improve their performance for disabled customers, clients or service users, employees and stakeholders. Use this link to access further details on EFD’s own web-site.

According to research by XpertHR, employers remain sceptical about how proactive GPs are being in using the fit note to encourage employees to return to work quicker. They found that more than 85% of employers believe that GPs are not good at communicating what employers need to do to help workers back into work, despite the … Read more

Delegates at TUC’s Congress last week unanimously supported a motion moved by construction union UCATT critical of the government’s decision to lop 35 per cent off HSE’s budget by 2015. The annual TUC conference was told longstanding financial pressures mean HSE’s enforcement activities have already fallen to an all-time low. UCATT’s press release provides more … Read more

A new policy paper published by the Liberal Democrats has called for employers to be disqualified if they fail to protect employees’ wellbeing, in the same way that they can disqualified be for financial impropriety. It said the measure would be suitable for “serious failures”.

Previous supply chain project initiatives by the HSE have demonstrated success (see a report by Research Partners Director Claire Tyers and the Institute for Employment Studies on initiatives working on the construction supply chain). Building on this, HSE are launching a new project to improve the control and management of health risks in the construction … Read more

An investigation has been launched into the tragedy which last week killed four men at a Swansea Valley mine. This was the worst mining accident for 30 years. The Welsh secretary, Cheryl Gillan, said: “We must ensure we learn the lessons and find out what happened to these men.” The investigation would initially be led by … Read more