The success of our businesses lies in maintaining the health and well being of employees. Yet people issues are often forgotten in the rush for profits

Earlier this year, there was much talk of government attempts to reduce incapacity benefit by replacing GP sick notes with "well notes". This was tied in to the usual dicussions on the costs of stress-related sickness absence in teachers, managers and other professionals. And it was followed by a national survey from the Samaritans suggesting a substantial increase in workplace bullying.

These are all issues involving the quality of working life. The question for directors is whether employees who complain about stress or being bullied or about their unacceptable work-life balance are just whingers, finding any excuse not to work. Or are their concerns genuine issues that arise in a fast-moving, insecure and increasingly competitive society?

Over the last two decades, we have become more affluent, with the economy growing to the point where we are now in the top five developed economies in the world. But there has been a downside to this success. We see this in the sickness absence statistics published every year, which show stress and mental health issues replacing muscular skeletal problems as the major source of workplace ill-health.

In addition, mental health and stress are now the leading source of incapacity benefit, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of the total bill. We also see frequent reports that our happiness rating as a society has declined over the last 10 years, with some observers claiming it has halved over the last 20 years, putting us well down the world league table.

So, why are we failing to look after our staff properly? Have we lost sight of the frequently spouted HR euphemism about people being our most valuable resource? Have we become so driven by the bottom line that the concept of nurturing staff has gone? As a director of a small firm myself, and having worked with large private- and public-sector organisations, it seems that while employers are concerned about the well being of staff, the frenetic pace of business life means many of us have have taken our eye off the ball. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that our organisations depend on the commitment and motivation of those who work for us.

Overloading them, stressing them, micro-managing them or letting work spill over into their private lives is not the way to get the engagement and loyalty we need to succeed. But there are some things we can do to help.
First, we need to provide employees with as much autonomy and control over their jobs as possible. People need to feel they are trusted and valued. We can show this by being "hands free" in managing people.

Second, a long-hours culture can damage the health of the individual and their family. We need to change this. Individuals understand that if the company has an important order to fill they will have to work longer hours in a particular week. It is the insidious "long-hours for the sake of it" culture that is damaging.

Third, it would be a good idea to manage people by praise and reward rather than by constant fault-finding or negative feedback. An effective manager, like an effective parent, knows how to balance praise with negative feedback in their relationships. Managers rarely use praise in motivating staff, particularly when people perform above and beyond the call of duty.

So how to get these ideas into our businesses? As part of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda, why not consider including figures on sickness absence, employee satisfaction or staff turnover in the annual report? These could become benchmarks to improve on in future years. And why not consider giving managers some of these key performance indicators, so that part of their role becomes managing the well being, engagement and motivation of staff? These could also become part of any performance management process.

Health and well being are no longer soft business issues. They not only impact sickness absence and staff turnover rates, but also important aspects of businesses such as commitment, flexibility and loyalty.

Cary L. Cooper, CBE, is Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University Management School, a director of Robertson Cooper and co-editor of Building More Effective Organizations (Cambridge University Press).