Just one in 10 disabled employees report a positive experience of OH

Barely one in 10 employees (9%) with a disability reports having had a positive experience of occupational health, a damning report has concluded.

The study by the Business Disability Forum has also found disabled employees are by and large scathing and suspicious about the role, motives and value of OH teams, especially external consultants brought in to carry out function and capacity assessments.

Equally, just a third of managers feel access to occupational health helps them make effective adjustments for employees with disabilities, with similarly low proportions feeling they understand the role of OH or how it fits within their organisation.

The report, The Great Big Workplace Adjustments Survey 2023, concluded that just 36% of managers polled agreed “a lot” that the occupational health process helped them make adjustments for employees.

The same low percentage agreed to the same extent that they understood the role of occupational health, including what OH does and doesn’t do.

Equally, only 36% agreed they were confident to tell disabled employees what will happen during their occupational health assessment and next steps.

Even fewer, just 33%, agreed a lot that they knew how occupational health fits in with their organisation’s workplace adjustments process.

Slightly more than a quarter (27%) agreed they knew what to do after they had received their employee’s OH report.

Even fewer again (26%) agreed that the OH process was helpful, with 25% agreeing a lot that it “helped them understand how to manage and support their employees.”

Only 14% agreed they were involved in their disabled employee’s occupational health assessment and, as the employee’s manager, were able to speak to the OH adviser.

Managers often felt referrals were “unbalanced” if they were not involved. Too often, they complained, the report simply detailed what the employee had told the assessor, or the recommendations were unclear or non-committal.

As one manager told the researchers: “I have yet to find a provider that I feel meets the expectations we require. Most occupational health just relay what the employee tells them, rather than asking probing questions or digging deeper, and fail to make recommendations that suit the needs of the business or liaise with the manager to help make recommendations. We always refer people because we want to support the employee, but usually occupational health is less than supportive.”

OH too often a ‘tick box’

The forum also questioned 1,307 disabled employees about their experience of using occupational health – with 68% having used OH during the past five years – and the results were, if anything, even worse.

Just 37% felt the occupational health process had been supportive. An even smaller percentage (33%) said the format and location of the appointment or assessment had been accessible, with only 32% feeling they had been given enough information about what would happen.

A total of 31% said the OH process had helped their employer put adjustments in place for them, with just 27% agreeing it had helped their manager to know how best to support them.

Barely a fifth (22%) felt the occupational health process had helped them understand or manage the impact of their disability or condition at work.

The employees were then encouraged to give feedback in their own words about their experience of occupational health.

Of the 577 who responded to this, just 9% reported a positive experience of OH.

The most common free-text response was that employees felt OH was a ‘tick box’ part of the process. As one employee put it: “My manager wanted me to go to occupational health even though I told him this wasn’t necessary and I had identified the adjustment I needed already. He wanted to ‘cover his back’.”

Another told the researchers: “I feel it [OH] is easily open to abuse. They [OH] literally take at face value what you say. My employer had already agreed and implemented the adjustment I require. I felt it was a bit of a ‘box ticking’ exercise.”

A third said: “[OH] are used by work to ‘push [you] out.”

The forum report concluded that: “There was much evidence that, in these situations, OH causes employees much stress, unease, and to distrust both their employer and OH as a profession.”

It added that: “Overall, the current approach to OH is not working. Employees feel OH is therefore to benefit the employer, and employees feel it is there only to relay what employees tell them.”