Line managers are getting a new digital toolbox to help them keep workers with anxiety, depression, or back pain on the job instead of off sick. This matters because common health problems remain the leading cause of sickness absence in the UK, and return-to-work rates drop sharply the longer someone is away. Line managers often lack the confidence or tools to make the small adjustments—flexible hours, temporary task changes—that can keep someone working while they recover. The Health & Safety Executive previously funded a prototype online resource called the Health<>Work Toolbox, but it has not yet been tested or refined for widespread use. Over nine months, researchers will recruit a network of employers, employees with health complaints, and work-health organisations. Stakeholders will test the prototype, provide feedback, and attend co-production workshops to generate a “wish list” of improvements. The final output will be a deployment strategy specifying what updates the toolbox needs, which digital platforms to use, and how to evaluate its impact. If successful, the refined toolbox could give line managers a scalable, evidence-based way to reduce sickness absence and boost productivity among working-age adults with common health problems.
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Background: The persistence of common health problems (CHPs) as leading causes of sickness absence (SA) indicates that current approaches for mitigating the adverse impact of anxiety, depression and musculoskeletal disorders on workability remain sub-optimal. Return-to-work (RTW) rates diminish with increased time off work, so early intervention to maintain work ability is paramount. Despite line managers potential to directly affect job conditions that facilitate workability, they have limited confidence in supporting health at work. Consequently, developing scalable solutions for upskilling line managers and workplaces to sustainably support working-age adults with CHPs to maintain workability could be key to reducing health-related economic inactivity in the UK. The Health & Safety Executive previously commissioned a multistage biopsychosocial-based project to establish novel biopsychosocial approaches for managing CHPs in the workplace, resulting in the co-produced prototype "Health<>Work Toolbox" providing evidence-informed guidance and tools to enable managers to promote good jobs , implement just-in-time accommodations when workers struggle with symptoms, and develop health-facilitating organisational cultures, to foster workability. The Government s White Paper "Get Britain Working" provides an impetus for translating this prototype into a fully tested, widely disseminated resource. Aims and objectives: A pathway for refining the development and subsequent deployment of the prototype online Toolbox will be generated, utilising six predominantly sequential work-packages (WP), progressing through acceptability testing, improvement identification and deployment strategy development. A mixed-methods co-production-based design will be used. Methodology: During the preparatory WP (month 1), ethics approval will be sought, and reverse coding checks of the toolbox s behaviour change potential will be undertaken. An extensive collaborative stakeholder network (WP2) will be developed in parallel through snowball-based recruitment to help fulfil project objectives (months 2 to 4). The network will be stratified to ensure cross-industry employer representation, inclusion of employees with health complaints, work-health organisations and relevant academics/scientists. Stakeholder involvement will be targeted according to WP needs. Next, (WP3, months 3.5 to 4), stakeholders will be invited to access and use the online prototype Toolbox and provide feedback about their experiences of its acceptability and contemporary workplace relevance. The resulting qualitative data will then be subjected to framework analysis (WP4, month 5) to identify what-needs-to-change themes, which will then be used in two online and one in-person coproduction workshop to generate wish lists (WP5, months 5 to 6) for guiding toolbox refinement. During the final WP (WP6, months 7 to 9), a deployment strategy will be co-created that specifies: refinements necessary for producing a Toolbox updates; suitable digital platforms; data collection requirements for wider impact and process evaluation; future onsite feasibility testing methodology; organisations willing to partner in dissemination; and anticipated maintenance requirements. Anticipated Impact: Due to its basis on a biopsychosocial framework, focus on line manager competencies, inclusion of health promotion (good jobs) with facilitation of working while recovering (timely workplace accommodations), and enablement of end-to-end (total) worker support, a co-developed refinement of the Health<>Work Toolbox should provide a scalable means of improving work ability, reducing SA, and boosting productivity amongst working-age adults with health complaints
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