Nicola Hodkinson, owner and director at Seddon, shares her views on the concept of ‘construction burnout’, why it’s important to understand and address it and how family values play a part in supporting mental wellbeing at Seddon
A recent study named the construction industry as the sector to most likely cause burnout amongst its 3 million UK workers. It tops the likes of healthcare, agriculture and education when it comes to burnout – the most common adverse reaction to job stress that leaves us feeling physically unable to do our job.
According to data from another report by HSE, over 400,000 days of work were lost, in one year alone, due to poor mental health in the industry. The effects of burnout were first identified in 1974 and in 2019, it was recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an ‘occupational phenomenon’. They defined it as, ‘a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.’
Burnout or pandemic fatigue?
When considering ‘construction burnout’ as a phenomenon in 2022, it can’t be done without also acknowledging how the pandemic further exacerbated it or how it created a new type of burnout.
When the country went into lockdown in March 2020, like with many other sectors, it had an impact on our staff, both site-based and office-based. Site staff had to acclimatise to new standard operating procedures (SOPs) and work socially distanced. Working on a construction site can be challenging enough during “normal” times but with less staff on site due to Covid restrictions, this really had an impact. On a social level, site teams were also struggling with isolation, as visitors were not allowed – completely changing the day-to-day routine of working on a site. Further pressure came from external factors too, like delays to the supply chain, impacting the delivery of materials.
The introduction of working from home for office-based staff created an “always on” culture, taking away the usual daily routine. During the pandemic, there were extra commitments for all employees to juggle, for example, homeschooling or childcare. Site-staff of course couldn’t be at home to contend with extra daily responsibilities like homeschooling, so this put more pressure on them. To manage these changes, we’ve adapted to support site staff with more flexible ways of working.
The lockdown put the focus on work and when socialising started to come back as restrictions lifted, it created undue pressure to continue to produce the same level of work. For some, there was an inconsistent pattern between work life and home or social life, in and out of lockdowns meant the scale kept moving. This leans into the idea that a new type of burnout was created or ‘pandemic fatigue’, as coined by WHO.
The work life balance was impacted by Covid which put more pressure on feelings of burnout. There was no socialising with friends or looking forward to holidays and even now, booking a trip isn’t exactly straightforward.
Managing change can be difficult too, regardless of the sector – the pandemic was an unknown entity that every individual and business was experiencing for the first time.
Prior to Covid, the sector experienced uncertainty around Brexit and the supply chain was heavily affected, creating a domino effect on the ability to procure supplies and materials due to a lack of drivers.
Regardless of these uncertainties and the extra pressure from Covid, the construction industry continued to be key to the wider economy throughout the pandemic. Build UK’s May 2020 Covid update reported that 86% of infrastructure and construction sites in England and Wales were open, an increase on 70% at the end of April 2020. At Seddon, our sites were only shutdown for 4-6 weeks during the first lockdown.
Changing attitudes
Managing change in general can be a lot to contend with and it can take its toll, whether there’s changes in technology, working patterns, relationships, or the world. There’s so much that has impacted people at Seddon, from employees to managers or leaders in the business.
In recent years, Seddon has developed several initiatives to address the “macho” stereotype of working in construction and enact positive change. It’s these stereotypes that put a negative spin on the industry, but the reality is that attitudes are changing.
At Seddon, managers attend resilience workshops which offer guidance on how to distinguish between pressure and stress, as well as developing good habits for general wellbeing.
Quarterly meetings are held with representatives from around the business to discuss how the company can further support employees and make Seddon a healthier and safer place to work.
‘It’s okay not to be okay’ is used in all internal communications relating to wellbeing, ensuring that our staff know they are supported. Our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is regularly highlighted within the business and to our supply chain, to encourage anyone to seek advice if they’re struggling with workload. We also provide counselling support, occupational health referrals and a support services team.
Jordan’s Conversation
In 2017, a Seddon painter and decorator, Jordan Bibby took his own life – he was 25 years old. His passing had a huge impact on everyone at Seddon, with work colleagues shocked at the fact they hadn’t seen the signs.
Following the loss of Jordan, we launched Jordan’s Conversation initiative with Mates in Mind, a mental health charity with sector specific support for construction. Jordan’s Conversation is a toolbox talk designed to raise awareness of mental health, further supported by an internal team of mental health first aiders, trained to recognise the signs when a colleague may need help. The tagline of ‘start the conversation’ was used in conjunction with Jordan’s Conversation, encouraging our staff to talk to each other.
We wanted to create an open culture, where it’s okay not to be okay and for our people to feel empowered to reach out when they need help. The emphasis on this kind of working culture certainly gave us a strong foundation when the pandemic started.
When the world went online to adapt to the new ways of working with lockdown, we set up Yammer for our internal communication to create an online community for different parts of the business. We made sure any changes or news were shared. It was also used to check in with people and in the first few months of the pandemic, senior team members would post on it on a weekly basis. It was very important to us to prevent our staff from filling in the blanks by themselves on what was going on in relation to Covid and the business.
Ultimately, communication is the key to supporting the wellbeing of workers, checking in with them like you would with a family member.
Family values in business
At Seddon, our family values underpin everything we do and align with every employee and team. It all comes down to knowing your people and building relationships with them, so you are part of a team and know how they tick. If you’ve got a team with someone who is struggling, it’s going to have a direct impact on that team and productivity.
Therefore, it’s important for senior team and line managers to really know their people and for them to have the right tools to help if it’s needed. The balance was missing during the pandemic, we couldn’t touch base over a cup of tea or socialise, so Seddon celebrating its 125th year has come at the perfect time as we look to reconnect with teams, with events planned throughout the year and fundraising for The Christie.
If I had a conversation with my father about burnout, he’d say if you know your people, you’ll be alright. You’ve got to know your people to know if they’re okay or not. You could have two people in the same role with the same lifestyle but they’re still different people and will react differently to circumstances and change. That’s why it’s important to have conversations with people, acknowledging everyone as individuals.
People make places and profitability
At Seddon we believe people make places and work is a thing you do, not a place you go. If our staff are supported, that means productivity is supported too. Like with any business, staff retention is important to us, we want our people to enjoy work and progress in their career at Seddon.
Moving away from old stereotypes in construction can help attract the younger generation too. With more career choices and industries to go into, there’s more competition. As a sector, we need to start interacting with young people and show them there are different ways of being flexible on sites which the pandemic has helped us towards. Flexible working today isn’t just for office-based employees but there are ways to work more flexibly on construction sites. This is also an opportunity to overcome misconceptions about construction, highlighting the support systems available to employees.
As an industry we have a duty of care to offer mental health support and have the right tools and training in place, to help to change attitudes towards ‘construction burnout’.
As long as contractors have the right tools and training in place to help change attitudes and support colleagues’ health and wellbeing, construction is sure to become increasingly attractive to the next generation of workers.
Construction contributes over £110bn to the UK economy each year, that’s 7% of GDP. Construction is already one of the largest contributing sectors and involves over 280,000 businesses that provide nearly 3 million jobs. That’s about 10% of total national employment. It’s essential that we do everything we can to ensure this continues – and indeed grows.
Fortunately, the statistics and predictions for the future of the construction industry are so positive, providing us with a brilliant framework in which to operate.
