Psychological wellbeing for safety during COVID-19 and beyond

What has the COVID 19 pandemic taught us about the importance of employees’ psychological wellbeing for workplace safety - in the maritime sector and more generally? 

How can we learn from organisations’ responses to the pandemic about how best to support the psychological wellbeing of employees, longer-term? 

At Lloyd’s Register Foundation, we know that mental health is as important as physical health in Occupational Safety and Health practice. Building on the insights provided in the Psychological Wellbeing and Safety report, LRF is working with the UK’s Nottingham Business School to gather and share insight from organisations’ experiences of supporting their employees’ psychological wellbeing during the pandemic, in support of safer workplaces as we ‘build back’, post-pandemic.  

Questions we are seeking to answer include:

• How have organisations been supporting employees’ psychological wellbeing during the pandemic and return to work - and what’s worked? How has this varied in relation to different employee groups /demographics? 
• How has the rapid transition to new ways of working affected employees’ psychological wellbeing? Has it allayed or accelerated any anxieties about the future nature of work? 
• How is the safety of safety-critical systems being ensured?
• Are employee expectations changing in terms of acceptable levels of stress, work/life balance, etc. - how? How do organisations balance business and employees’ needs? 
• How can the increased focus on psychological wellbeing during the pandemic be embedded into effective practice, longer-term?

If your organisation has insight into any aspect of these questions, our research team would love to speak to you: email workplacewellbeing@ntu.ac.uk for more information and to arrange a conversation. 

Any data or insight shared can be anonymised or attributed (according to organisations’ preferences), and will contribute to a report and supporting events later in 2021, to which contributors will have early access. The project aims to provide maritime and other organisations with collated and actionable learning from the pandemic that will help them maximise employees’ psychological wellbeing and the role it plays in workplace safety into the future.