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A REPORT was published last month that had, on the face of it, little to do with mental health and wellbeing. But I think it did. Because it highlighted a trend that will test how organisations look after a growing number of people who work for them.
The contingent workforce has truly come of age during Covid, said business publication Management Today after market research found as much as 20% of all UK employment is now temporary, contract or independent work.
In Who needs a permanent workforce?, MT finds employers are turning in their droves to us non-permanent workers, and for increasingly skilled and senior roles.
What started during the pandemic as a pivot towards flexible food delivery, e-commerce and ‘work from home’ customer service roles is now extending to so-called ‘knowledge workers’, such as marketing execs and managers.
And in another report, nearly a third of organisations said they were replacing full-time employees with contingent workers in 2021 as a cost-saving measure.
You can’t move currently for pandemic-inspired articles on organisational resilience, and common factors highlighted in many are the agility and flexibility of your workforce. This is why non-permanent workers now fit the bill.
This year, perhaps more than any other given the situation, Mental Health Awareness Week has given us all a platform to promote positive mental health and wellbeing. And sure enough, employers are talking this week about shaping work environments that don’t stress their people out. It’s mental health first aid, work-life balance and ‘it’s ok not to be ok’. And this is a positive thing, of course.
Is the real future test of these caring affirmations, however, whether they extend to workers not on the payroll that they’re relying on more and more?
There are different types of ‘contingent’
- Free agents - primary income, preferred choice
- Reductants - primary income, out of necessity
- Casual earners - supplemental income, preferred choice
- Financially strapped - supplemental income, out of necessity
So some choose this life of being one’s own boss. For others, it’s an existence born out of necessity. Either way, whether you’re a free agent or financially strapped, work ebbs and flows and it can feel insecure.
It’s a way of life that’s inherently pressured, which explains why more than 60% of freelancers questioned for this survey, by Leapers, said they were currently or have at some point dealt with a mental health challenge or condition.
In 2018, I wrote an article
for Personnel Today on the UK Government-commissioned Taylor Report on the gig economy and a survey we commissioned while I was at IOSH, a workplace safety and health body. It was about the health and wellbeing aspects of gig work that we felt Matthew Taylor’s report had missed.
The IOSH survey
found gig economy workers, including freelancers, temps and workers on zero-hours contracts, reported receiving fewer protections for their health and wellbeing at work than their permanent, full-time colleagues.
In early 2021, Taylor left his role as employment tsar with a swipe at Ministers for lack of progress. “There was an initial enthusiasm but that has waned, and waned, and waned,” he told the Guardian. If he was talking more about workers’ rights than directly their safety, health and wellbeing, his concerns reflected the general unease that non-permanent workers still lack protection.
Poll findings
So, I thought I’d have a stab at polling the freelancer friends in my network, and two findings on mental health and wellbeing were prominent:
- Being their own boss had had a positive effect on their mental health and wellbeing (this received the most votes)
- They had worked as a freelancer for an organisation whose actions towards them had had a negative impact on their mental health and wellbeing (a narrow second)
Next most popular statement out of five was ‘It is difficult to find a work-life balance as a freelancer’, followed by ‘organisations need to do more to protect the health and wellbeing of the freelancers they employ’. A slightly smaller number said policy-makers had more to do.
This little poll on Facebook can’t claim to be scientific, of course, but it perhaps hints at a way forward.
For the freelancer, it’s about taking more personal responsibility for our own health and wellbeing. Let’s keep work and the rest of our lives apart where possible and find time in the day to rest and recoup.
For the business, in the absence of tighter legislation, maybe it’s about taking the view, because you're a force for good, that you should care for all the people you ask to work for you. Contingents may not be part of your permanent worker ‘family’, but can you treat them as friends or co-workers at the very least?
Freelancer stressors
According to that Leapers survey, common causes of stress for freelancers that are under the control of clients are:
- Having to chase late/unpaid invoices (62.79%)
- Poor communication from client (73.5%)
- Lack of on-boarding / project kickoffs (54.9%)
- Lack of feedback (34.8%)
Now, I’m lucky to be working currently for clients who are lovely people and care about this sort of thing. But if you’re not 100% sure you fall into the caring client category, maybe this week of all weeks is a good one for having a think about how you care for everyone who works for you in some capacity.
So to my freelancer friends, this piece by Jon Younger, Managing the stress of freelancing: six ways to take control, is worth reading.
For both freelancers and employers, leapers.co
is a rare resource dedicated to supporting the mental health of the self-employed. It’s well worth checking out.
Branagh PR is a public relations consultancy specialising in safety, health and wellbeing in the workplace. Find out more here at branaghpr.com
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