A brand new authorities scheme geared toward tackling long-term office illness has been dismissed by enterprise leaders and advisers as woefully insufficient, with critics warning it quantities to “emptying the ocean with a teaspoon”.
The initiative, introduced this morning by the Division for Work and Pensions, will fund occupational well being coaching for five,000 line managers working in small and medium-sized enterprises throughout England. The free coaching, delivered by the Establishment of Occupational Security and Well being, will run between January and March subsequent yr and is designed to assist managers spot early indicators of health-related points and intervene earlier than staff fall out of labor altogether.
Ministers say the scheme will assist deal with what they describe as an inherited disaster, with greater than 2.8 million folks presently signed off as long-term sick — one of many highest charges within the G7. Authorities-commissioned evaluation has discovered that round 800,000 extra working-age adults at the moment are out of labor on account of illness than in 2019.
The monetary price to small companies is critical. Changing an worker misplaced to unwell well being prices greater than £11,000 on common, whereas every day of illness absence is estimated to price companies about £120 in misplaced revenue. The coaching will give attention to equipping line managers to recognise warning indicators reminiscent of persistent fatigue, adjustments in behaviour and rising absence ranges, and to have extra supportive conversations about office changes.
The Minister for Employment, Dame Diana Johnson, stated the scheme would give small companies instruments they usually lack. “Too usually, small companies lose expert workers to well being points with out the instruments to help them, and that doesn’t assist anybody,” she stated. “This free coaching offers line managers the boldness to have the best conversations and make changes that would assist maintain folks in work.”
Nonetheless, specialists throughout information, HR, finance and advisory sectors questioned each the ambition and impression of the programme.
Rohit Parmar-Mistry, founding father of Burton-on-Trent-based Pattrn Information, stated the numbers merely didn’t add up. He argued that coaching 5,000 managers would make little distinction to an issue affecting thousands and thousands. “This looks like outsourcing the issue to already overworked SME managers,” he stated, warning that recognizing well being points earlier does nothing to repair persistent sickness, lengthy NHS ready lists or wider systemic failures. “A supervisor can recognise fatigue, however they’ll’t repair public healthcare or damaged work environments.”
Kate Underwood, founding father of Kate Underwood HR and Coaching, stated the initiative addressed solely a part of the issue. Whereas she welcomed efforts to enhance managers’ confidence in having troublesome conversations, she warned that the actual stress on small companies got here from the price of illness absence, the complexity of affordable changes and delays in accessing occupational well being recommendation. “Coaching helps, nevertheless it doesn’t take away the monetary and authorized pressure that sinks small groups,” she stated.
From a wellbeing perspective, Sarah Gatford, founding father of Sarah Gatford Ltd, stated the success of the scheme would rely on whether or not it went past compliance. She argued that real progress required managers to construct belief and psychological security, not merely observe checklists. “If this helps managers ask ‘How can I assist?’ as an alternative of ‘When will you be again?’, it’s a begin, however 5,000 managers throughout your entire SME sector continues to be a drop within the ocean,” she stated.
Others had been extra blunt. Riz Malik, director of R3 Wealth, described the initiative as disconnected from the actual priorities of small companies. “This most likely isn’t on the highest 100 checklist of issues SMEs need from authorities going into 2026,” he stated, calling it one other instance of policymaking divorced from industrial actuality.
Scott Gallacher, director at Rowley Turton, stated the funding stage uncovered the hole between political messaging and operational actuality. He famous that just about 80% of SMEs present no occupational well being coaching in any respect, throughout an financial system with roughly 5.7 million small companies. “If you break the numbers down, this equates to pennies per particular person off work,” he stated. “That implies that is extra about optics than impression.”
Whereas ministers insist the scheme is a primary step in direction of conserving extra folks in work, critics argue that with out deeper funding in healthcare, office flexibility and sustainable job design, the initiative dangers turning into one other well-intentioned coverage that fails to shift the underlying drawback.
