Wellbeing | Prevention is better than cure - keeping employees well and in work

By Dr Tarun Gupta, Medical Officer at Legal & General

Covid-19 specific anxiety could further exacerbate existing – and ever rising – work-related stress issues, especially as employees shift from homeworking or furlough back to workplaces. What does prevention look like?

There’s nothing new about the concept of prevention being better than cure. And the importance of ensuring this is ingrained into employer support for mental health cannot be over-estimated; for the sake of people and business. This isn’t just an absence management issue, it’s also a presenteeism, productivity and reputation issue. It’s also a potential employer liability issue. But what can you do when the issue simply cannot be prevented – in other words, when the stressor is a global pandemic? In short, you can’t. But you can put it into perspective. First, don’t make the mistake of medicalising normal stress reactions to adverse events or circumstances. Second, help prevent a temporary problem becoming something altogether more permanent.

The extent of the problem