Employee Well-being Support: A Workplace Resource

Organisations today have to place much greater weight on the emotional and psychological health of employees. Those that neglect this are risking reduced productivity, poorer labour relations, adverse publicity and even litigation.

Written by an international team of leading practitioners, academics and business leaders, Employee Well-being Support covers current developments in employee support and provides guidance to inform everyday practice in the workplace. It is made up of three parts:

• Organisational Behaviour Issues and Well-being (includes organisational ‘duty of care’, managing diversity and behaviour risk management)
• Responding to Specific Organisational Challenges (includes suicide and sudden death at work, workplace bullying and responses to disasters)
• Mental Health, Emotions and Work (includes stress management, mentoring, coaching and managing conflict)

This practical and comprehensive guide covers all aspects of employee well-being support in one volume. It is a must-read resource for a wide range of practitioners and students across occupational psychology, HR, coaching and counselling. Business leaders and students on MBA and other business programmes will also benefit from reading this book.

About the Editors

Andrew Kinder is a Chartered Counselling and Chartered Occupational Psychologist, is the Chair of the Association for Counselling at Work (counsellingatwork.org.uk a Division of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) and is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. He is also a Chartered Scientist. He is currently principal psychologist with Atos Healthcare with responsibility for a large counselling and employee assistance programme service. He has worked in the area of stress, trauma and employee assistance within organisations for over 13 years and has run numerous courses for all levels on managing stress, maximising performance under pressure, coping with change and trauma support while, as a counsellor and coach, having his own case-load of clients, many of whom have stress-related issues. He was a member of the steering group which produced the Mind Out for mental health line managers’ resource: A Practical Guide to Managing and Supporting Mental Health in the Workplace. He has been active as a researcher – his latest being a collaboration with the Institute of Employment Studies, Royal Mail Group, University of Sheffield and the British Occupational Health Research Foundation into the evidence for organisational interventions used following a work-related trauma. He has published articles on stress, substance misuse and trauma. His most recent publication is co-authoring with Rick Hughes best practice guidelines in relation to counselling in the work-place (BACP, Rugby). He also has an interest in media psychology and has carried out numerous assessments on contributors for reality TV programmes plus providing after-care.

Rick Hughes has widespread experience within the world of workplace counselling, employee assistance programmes (EAP) and employee development fields having worked for several international EAP providers and consultancies. He is head Adviser for Counselling in the Workplace of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. He was Deputy Chair of the Association for Counselling at Work (ACW) and a founding member of the Association for Coaching (AC). He has been a guest lecturer on the MBA course at Edinburgh University Management School. Rick’s publications include co-author of Experiences of Person-Centred Counselling Training (2000, PCCS Books), editor of An Anthology of Counselling at Work II (2004, BACP) and current editor of Counselling at Work journal. With fellow editor, Andrew Kinder, he co-wrote Guidelines for Counselling in the Workplace on behalf of ACW and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). Rick has an MPhil, ‘An emotions perspective – extending the role of employee assistance programmes’, under Professor Dave Mearns at University of Strath-clyde, where he retains an Honorary Research Fellowship.

Professor Cary L. Cooper is Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health, Lancaster University Management School and Pro Vice Chancellor (External Relations) at Lancaster University. He is the author of over 100 books (on occupational stress, women at work, and industrial and organisational psychology), has written over 400 scholarly articles for academic journals, and is a frequent contributor to national newspapers, TV and radio. He is currently founding editor of the Journal of Organizational Behavior and co-editor of the medical journal Stress and Health (formerly Stress Medicine). He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Royal Society of Arts, the Royal Society of Medicine, the Royal Society of Health, the British Academy of Management and an academician of the Academy for the Social Sciences. Professor Cooper is the immediate past president of the British Academy of Management, is a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute and one of the first UK-based Fellows of the (American) Academy of Management (having also won the 1998 Distinguished Service Award for his contribution to management science from the Academy of Management). In 2001, Cary was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his contribution to organisational health. He holds honorary doctorates from Aston University (DSc), Heriot-Watt University (DLitt), Middlesex University (Doc. Univ) and Wolverhampton University (DBA); an Honorary Fellowship of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians; and in 2006 was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians (Hon FRCP).

Professor Cooper is the editor-in-chief of the international scholarly Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management (13-volume set); and the editor of Who’s Who in the Management Sciences. He has been an adviser to two UN agencies; the World Health Organisation and ILO; published a major report for the EU’s European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Work Conditions on ‘Stress Prevention in the Workplace’; and was a special adviser to the Defense Committee of the House of Commons on their Duty of Care enquiry (2004– 2005). Professor Cooper is Chair of the Sunningdale Institute, a think tank on management and organisational issues, in the National School of Government in the Cabinet Office. Professor Cooper is also the President of the Institute of Welfare Officers, President of ISMA, President of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (from October 2006), an ambassador of the Samaritans and patron of the National Phobic Society.