Electricity distributor UK Power Networks, which operates across London, the South East and East of England, avoids employee burnout and fatigue by carefully looking after staff and ensuring they stay safe working in challenging conditions and on shift rotas.
The business, which employs 5,500 people, makes a point of being ready to react quickly and safely in the event of communities facing a power cut. While these are rare, they are most likely to happen during exceptionally high winds, creating hazardous working environments.
When a major incident happens, many UK Power Network employees in business support functions stop their day job and assist in answering the phones due to high volumes of customer calls. After Storm Eunice in 2022, support for the call handlers who had experienced the pressure of talking to distressed customers was brought in.
Dawn McDonald, health and wellbeing manager at UK Power Networks, explains that with ever-increasing pressures at work and home, there are times when employees need some extra support to balance the demands of everyday life.
“We focus on the concept of sustaining positive mental health, through prevention, intervention and the promotion of health and wellbeing,” she says.
“This year, we are refreshing the training for all our active mental health first aiders, and we will be updating our mental health e-learning for line managers to further support them following previous mental health training. This informs them of proactive measures and services that can be used.”
UK Power Networks offer a free and confidential employee assistance programme (EAP) which is staffed by experienced and professional advisers, providing a short-term counselling service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This acts as a proactive intervention to support employees to remain at work and prevent absence. All employees, and family members over 16 who live in the same household, can use the service to talk about work and personal issues, such as debt advice, relationships, managing money and stress management, among others.
Alongside this, UK Power Networks offers a digital health and wellbeing service through Pam Assist to support staff with practical and emotional tools to better manage every area of their lives.
McDonald states that these services help to provide both proactive and reactive workplace mental health and wellbeing solutions, designed to create long-lasting results, while also offering health coach support to help employees reach their lifestyle goals.
She concludes: “To build on this, UK Power Networks will roll out a personal resilience programme across the business later this year to guide staff on how to spot colleagues feeling the strain. We will help advise on how staff can develop coping mechanisms through coaching programmes and will make personal resilience central to our future recruitment.”