Co-developing the Health <>Work Toolbox for optimal workplace deployment

Work Package 2: Collaborative Stakeholder Network Development

We are currently recruiting participants to join a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funded project, aiming to refine a prototype digital toolbox developed to help employers keep working-age adults with common health problems working.

This will involve creating a representative collaborative network of scientific experts in work and health, employer representatives, as well as employees of several sectors from small and large organisations. This network will be used to invite potential participants to the other stages of the research project.

Before you decide if you would like to consider taking part, we would like you to understand why the research is being done and what it would involve for you so that your decision is fully informed. Please read this before completing the consent form.

You will then be asked to complete a short survey so that you can help us take this work forward.

Answering the survey should take about 10 minutes of your time.

This project is a collaboration between Dr Jennifer Lunt and Kate Wood from the University of Derby, as Principal Investigators, and Professor Stavroula Leka from the University of Lancaster, Professor Kim Burton, and Dr Sally Hemming, as Co-Investigators. In addition to this, a steering group comprised of representatives of organisations that are involved in work and health policy making, scientists who specialise in work and health, and industry stakeholder who hold an active interest in workplace health will be established to support the direction of the project.

1. What is the purpose of the research?

Information about the purpose is broken down according to why the overall project is being undertaken, and why this particular part of the project (development of a collaborator project) is being undertaken.

1.1 Overall Project

As you may know, health conditions such as anxiety and depression, and musculoskeletal disorders, often referred to as common health problems (CHPs), continue to dominate as leading causes of sickness absence. This suggests that existing approaches to reducing absence require improvement. Line managers report limited confidence in supporting health at work [1]. Consequently, developing scalable, accessible solutions for upskilling line managers and workplaces to sustainably support working-age adults with CHPs to maintain workability could be key to reducing health-related economic inactivity in the UK.

We have received NIHR funding to find out whether a previously developed digital prototype for enhancing the work ability of working-age adults with CHPs can help the renewed national focus on “getting Britain working.” The “Health<>Work Toolbox”[1] was originally designed as a ‘one-stop’ educational resource with a wide selection of ‘tools’ to enable employers, and line managers in particular, to provide health-supportive 'good jobs' and accommodate workers struggling with ill health. We now need to find out what further development work may be necessary for translating this prototype into a fit-for-purpose, fully tested, widely used resource.

We are running a multiphase project to do this:

Work Package 1 (WP1) - Involves preparatory work to set the project up. This includes setting up a sounding board with whom we can coproduce some of the project tools to help meet project needs, and a steering group who can help us with recruitment and advise on key stages.

Work Package 2: (WP2) - Development of a Collaborative Stakeholder Network - We e will recruit a representative network of scientific experts in work and health, employer representatives (managers, line managers, HR, Government agencies), and workers (from small and large workplaces in several sectors) from which we can recruit participants for other work packages in is projects.

Work Package 3 (WP3): Acceptability Testing - We will then invite members of the network to try out the prototype Toolbox online and give feedback on potential refinements for improving its workplace relevance and potential impact.

Work Package 4 (WP4): Data Synthesis – to identify themes about what needs to change.

Work Package 5 (WP5): Co-production Workshops – to agreed updates via online and in-person workshops.

Work Package 6 (WP6): Development of a Deployment strategy - comprising methods and scientific assessments for evaluating the deployment and use during the main research project.

These work packages of different stages of the project are outlined in the following flow-chart.

[1] Kendall, N., Burton, K., Lunt, J., Mellor, N., & Daniels, K. (2015). Developing an intervention toolbox for common health problems in the workplace. Health and Safety Laboratory.

1.2 Development of a Collaborative Stakeholder Network

To make sure that the updated “Health<>Work Toolbox” keeps people with CHPs (and related health challenges) working sustainably, we welcome working-age adults (18+yrs) from the following groups to join our network:

Employer representatives including senior leadership, managers, line managers, human resources, occupational health professionals, trade union representatives from across the UK, from different industry sectors and from organisations of different sizes.

Workers with lived or living experience of either successfully or unsuccessfully working with health challenges from different industry sectors and from organisations of different sizes.

Professionals from work-health organisations/agencies (e.g., Government Departments, Professional Organisations, Charities) with insights into work-health challenges

Work-health academics/scientists (e.g., in human resource specialists, economists, business experts, psychologists, occupational health/wellbeing related areas).

If you are from one or more of these groups, then we hope that you can join this network. You can do this by completing the Health<>Work Toolbox network survey to provide your contact details and answer the following questions about your work and health status.:

Contact details that we can use to invite you to different stages of the research.

Demographic information for contacting you and determining how representative our network is of different groups: Name, sex; ethnicity, region, socioeconomic status stakeholder type (e.g., whether you are senior leader, line manager, worker etc).

Work status for determining nature of your work-based experience and expertise, including occupation type, job level, employment status (e.g., employed, self-employed) industry sector.

Health status for determining experience of working with health challenges, including your disability status, whether you work or have worked and/or managed people with CHPs and whether you work/have worked and/or managed people with other Long-Term Conditions.

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