Trust issues: The UK’s next government needs to prioritise the health and wellbeing of our country’s workforce
By Chris Brook-Carter, chief executive of the Retail Trust
As the retail industry charity, the Retail Trust is dedicated to improving the health and happiness of people working across our sector.
And this is not just important to the retail workers and employers we support every day but for the UK as a whole.
Retail employs more people than any other industry outside of the public sector, contributed nearly 5% to the country’s GDP last year, and plays a vital role within local high streets and communities across the country. This makes the health and happiness of the sector’s workforce fundamental both to the UK’s economic resilience and our collective sense of wellbeing.
Meanwhile, record levels of people in the UK are currently not working due to long-term sickness, with more than two thirds of incapacity benefit claimants off work for mental health issues.
And that’s why, as we all get ready to head to the polls this week, we’re calling on clearer leadership from the country’s next government around the big issues that are currently causing retail staff and their employers so much uncertainty and insecurity.
- Resolve the business rates burden: Resolving the long-standing issue of business rates, alongside more support for the UK’s high streets to adapt to the new realities of the sector, will give retailers of all shapes and sizes more confidence to plan for the future by providing some much-needed stability.
- Ensure better protection for retail staff: The nation’s shop workers currently face unacceptable tirades of abuse and violence which is also threatening wellbeing across the retail industry and damaging its reputation as a great place to build or begin a career. We desperately need more stringent measures, such as the new UK-wide law to make assaulting a shop worker a standalone offence, to provide them with better protection.
- Boost employers’ mental health support: Going beyond the retail sector, any measures focused on encouraging those with mental health conditions back into the workforce will only work if they are accompanied by greater commitments from employers to really invest in and develop tailored wellbeing support for their people. This means employers better acknowledging and responding to their responsibilities for their staff’s mental health.
I am inspired by the tremendous efforts of the organisations and individuals the Retail Trust works with to improve workplace wellbeing. This includes the steps they’re taking to normalise the conversation around mental health, and using new tools like the Retail Trust’s happiness dashboard which helps employers better understand how their people are feeling and what support they need to put in place to create happier and healthier workplaces.
This won’t simply help them to retain healthier staff or alleviate the subsequent pressures on the NHS, but also result in more productive, sustainable and successful businesses.
And our hope is the next government, too, better recognises this fundamental link between happier and healthier people and the economic resilience and productivity of the UK as whole.
