A new standard for managing psychological health in the workplace is helping to transform the education sector.

When the pandemic struck in early 2020, most educational establishments around the world had something like a week to close their doors and put their entire program online. Since then, unpredictability has been the only constant for students and teachers alike.

Unsurprisingly, numerous studies have demonstrated its profound impact on the mental health of school and university staff, both during lockdown periods and when returning to the classroom. Concerns about how to effectively deliver courses online, and the pressure that comes with knowing they held the future of many young people in their hands, predictably led to increases in anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms for many.

Under Pressure

The pandemic, says Aditya Jain, a member of ISO’s committee for occupational health and safety and Associate Professor in Human Resource Management at the Nottingham University Business School, just amplified what was already a challenging task.

“Compared to other sectors, education has a higher prevalence of psychosocial hazards. 

Teachers and professors are exposed to people all the time, and the jobs are often underpaid with a lack of resources. But perhaps the most wearying of all is the sense of responsibility that teachers feel for the impact that education has on young people’s lives.” All of this is compounded by management issues, he adds, with many manager roles filled by those ill-equipped for the task, or faced with political interference, and the pressure just continues to build.

While many educational institutes have the best intentions in supporting the mental health of their employees and students, they have reported feeling helpless when faced with the nature of the job and the resources they must contend with.

This is where standards can help.

To read more about how standards can benefit the education sector, click here.

How to Make a Change with Standard BS EN ISO 45003

Published earlier this year, BS ISO 45003 Occupational health and safety management — Psychological health and safety at work — Guidelines for managing psychosocial risks aims to assist organizations of all kinds and all sectors to put in place good practices for managing employee psychological health and well-being.

It helps identify where psychosocial risks arise and how they can be mitigated or eliminated and can help you to develop expertise, increase people’s trust and manage risk better. Education organizations that try to prevent work-related ill-health can benefit from:

• Improved employee and student engagement

• Enhanced productivity and higher levels of discretionary effort

• Increased innovation

• Greater organizational resilience and legal compliance

While it is too early to accurately measure the impact of the standard on the profession, with such institutional changes taking time to take effect, the shift in mindset has undoubtedly already begun.

“Twenty years ago, an employer would say that mental health in the workplace is an individual issue and not their concern,” says Jain, “but times have changed since then. The silence has long been broken and the evidence is clear. But that doesn’t always mean the solutions are simple and the problem has gone away. With a change in mindset and much-awaited tangible tools such as BS ISO 45003, there is a lot of hope that real change is on the horizon.

In your safeguarding-critical industry, get everyone in your education business involved in embedding a culture of wellbeing. A BSI Knowledge subscription gives you instant access to the resources you need to improve your health and wellbeing processes. The flexibility and visibility it provides of the best practices guidance enable you to get the most from your standards. Build your own custom collection of standards, or opt for access to our GBM07 Occupational & Personal Safety module and keep up-to-date with any relevant changes to your standards strategy. Request to learn more.

Make sure your education institution is prioritizing its people, by adding standard BS EN ISO 45003 to your collection today.