Tag Archives: Stress

Back to basics: how employers can help solicitors’ well-being

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Law is one of the most popular degree choices, forming part of the ‘big triad’ along with medicine and finance in terms of a career of choice. But does a career in law come at a cost, and if so, what can employers do about it? Lucinda Soon, Solicitor and PhD student at Birkbeck’s Department of Organizational Psychology, highlights key findings from her research with co-authors, Dr James Walsh, Professor Almuth McDowall and Dr Kevin Teoh.

Over the past five years, the well-being of solicitors in England and Wales has become a topic of growing concern. In part, this was triggered by the disciplinary case of Sovani James. James, a junior solicitor, was struck off the Roll of Solicitors by the High Court for acting dishonestly at work, despite the Court acknowledging her behaviour may have arisen because of toxic work conditions and the stress she was under as a result. This decision sent an immediate shockwave through the solicitors’ profession, and an increased urgency developed to take the well-being of solicitors more seriously.

The Law Society of England and Wales has launched several surveys on the well-being of its junior members. Its latest survey, published in 2019, revealed that over 90% felt stressed in their role, with almost 25% feeling severely or extremely stressed. Last year, a study by the charity LawCare reported considerable risks of burnout, particularly relating to exhaustion.

These reports point towards a problem, but there is little evidence to inform us of what factors might be contributing to it and, importantly, how firms and organisations can help to address it. In our study, we sought to shed some light on this by looking at some possible aspects of work. Drawing on self-determination theory, we investigated how solicitors’ well-being might be affected by job autonomy, perceived belonging (or relatedness) at work, feelings of competence, and levels of mindfulness. To do this, we analysed responses from an online survey of 340 trainee and qualified solicitors practising in England and Wales.

The ABC’s of solicitors’ well-being

According to self-determination theory, we all have three basic psychological needs which must be satisfied if we are to flourish, thrive, and be well at work. These are the needs for autonomy (feeling we are in control of and have choice in our work), belonging or relatedness (feeling socially connected and supported at work), and competence (feeling we are effective in what we do, that we have mastery and skill, or that we can develop them). As the core psychological requirements for well-being, these factors also form a memorable acronym; to help solicitors’ well-being, do we need to go back to the basics of their ABCs?

We found the more that solicitors felt satisfied in their autonomy, belonging, and competence at work, the higher their well-being. This was observed regardless of gender, level of post-qualification experience (PQE), or type of organisation. In other words, common to all the solicitors we surveyed, feeling supported in their ABCs at work was important to their well-being.

Does mindfulness play a role?

Our study also found that solicitors with higher mindfulness experienced greater well-being. Again, this was the case regardless of gender, level of PQE, or where a solicitor worked, suggesting the benefit of mindfulness may be generally applied.

Interestingly, not only did higher mindfulness alone correspond with greater well-being; solicitors who were more satisfied in their needs for autonomy, belonging, and competence at work had higher levels of mindfulness, which in turn contributed to their well-being. Having the basic ABC building blocks in place appeared to cultivate mindfulness, amplifying the well-being benefits for solicitors.

What does this mean for managers and leaders?

While a clear link was found between mindfulness and solicitors’ well-being, our study points towards the importance of ensuring solicitors are satisfied in their ABCs at work. These basic and fundamental work factors play a direct role in solicitors’ well-being and may also help to facilitate the development of mindfulness to strengthen it even further. This places the work environment and work conditions of solicitors firmly into the spotlight.

Solicitors need to feel they have autonomy, that they belong, and are supported and cared for at work. They equally need to feel they are competent and effective in their jobs. Without these basic elements, their well-being will suffer. Our findings raise the possibility that had Sovani James been supported by her firm in terms of her ABCs at work, her mental health and well-being may not have deteriorated to the extent that it did, ultimately resulting in the end of her legal career.

The impact of Covid-19 and beyond

The changing context of work arising from Covid-19 cannot be ignored. Remote working and a greater appreciation for more flexible ways of working may have given many solicitors more autonomy in terms of when, where, and how they work; however, it has also introduced new challenges into the mix.

Our study shows that feeling connected and cared for, and competent and effective at work, matters for solicitors’ well-being. These work conditions can be easily frustrated when solicitors work in isolation from colleagues, mentors, and leaders, especially over a prolonged period of time. This may be particularly so for trainees and junior solicitors, who are less experienced and may need more frequent support from others.

Social-networking tools and formal and informal virtual catchups can help solicitors feel connected and supported by their work community even when they are working from home. Likewise, regular access to learning and development opportunities, agreed channels for feedback, and effective supervision can all be achieved using technology to facilitate communications. Remembering the need for autonomy, management and leadership practices which respect individual circumstances are also critical. One size will not fit all. Understanding people’s differing needs and wants and giving them a degree of control and choice over their work will all feed into their well-being.

As the profession continues to adjust to a new hybrid way of working, being alive to the importance of solicitors’ ABCs is a crucial starting point for all law firms and organisations looking to safeguard the well-being of their staff.

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My PhD focuses on well-being in the legal profession. While the findings of this study highlight some of the ways in which employers can help to promote solicitors’ well-being, there is more to the story. Please get in touch at l.soon@bbk.ac.uk, on LinkedIn or Twitter, if you’d like to discuss this study or share your thoughts.

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The Experiences of Junior Doctors Working During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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In light of the rapid rise in Omicron cases in the UK, Dr Kevin Teoh, Senior Lecturer in Organizational Psychology, shares the latest findings from a study exploring junior doctors’ mental health.

Dr Kevin Teoh smiling, standing against a wall.

A big factor behind the increasing COVID-19 restrictions being (re)-implemented following the emergence of the Omicron variant is the pressure that our healthcare system is under. It is easy to see the healthcare system as this big organisation and not fully realise that its most important makeup is its people – who have their own thoughts, feeling and emotions.

In this study, we sought to better understand what that experience was like for individual doctors working during this pandemic. Over the past three years I have been working on a project led by Dr Ruth Riley at the University of Birmingham on working cultures, mental health and suicide among junior doctors in the National Health Service. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, we were able to capture the experience and impact of our participants working on the front lines, and in this study we focus on interviews with fifteen junior doctors drawn from a larger online survey of 456 junior doctors.

Challenges of working during the pandemic

Here we saw participants share at a personal level strong feelings of helplessness and powerlessness – especially in relation to the exposure to death and suffering. One participant shared that: “’I’d seen a whole ward just emptied out and then refilled overnight, after people had just died. It was horrendous”. There was also significant concern not only about being infected, but about potentially infecting loved ones outside of the workplace.

Unsurprisingly, the pandemic created substantial upheaval for junior doctors’ workplaces. Patients loads increased substantially while there was a distinct lack of support reported by others. The already under-staffed system was stretched even further as colleagues were infected, had to isolate or simply needed a break having exceeded their working hours.

On top of that, our junior doctors reported a new pressure in having to take on all the new information about this new virus on top of their existing heavy workloads, as this participant shared: “We were getting 20 emails a day, and every single one would have a red flag saying ‘vital, important, must read’, and you’d worry you’d missed something […] there’s so much information, it was constant, and you couldn’t switch off”.

There were changes to work practices, such as increased phone and online consultations, which not only necessitated learning new systems but also was not always conducive to the task at hand or supporting patient needs. It was also an additional source of complaint and abuse from patients who were frustrated with these new forms of consultations. Restrictions on group sizes, socialising and training also accentuated feelings that their training, support and learning needs were not being met.

Strategies of coping with the pandemic

Recognising the challenges from the pandemic, it was therefore concerning that many participants shared the inadequacy of personal coping strategies. Although these may have been useful before the pandemic, it was often felt that it was not enough during the pandemic.

Participants here shared how crying was one way of dealing with emotions. Others tried to be stoic – over time they were worn though and resigned that things were not going to get any better. This led to one participant sharing that “we’ve sort of entered a collective sort of depressive state of acceptance”.

More proactive examples had junior doctors trying to exert more control over their situation, seeking out new roles and tasks, such as getting more involved with supporting relatives which helped them feel as though were actually accomplishing something – “It wasn’t that sort of like, ‘I put lines in people and hopefully’, and then just watching them die”. Others shared about how they had to actively seek out psychological support to help them cope and prevent them from spiralling further.

Positive impact on working practices

Not all was doom, with participants also sharing positive examples of change. Crucially, some changes to work practices – such as longer rotations and working in consistent teams – led to feelings of better stability and more support. There were also examples of how less bureaucracy and more control allowed junior doctors to focus on more efficient and better ways of working with each other and for their patients.

Organisations too had to rapidly learn how to support their workers, with more access to psychological help and resources, or the provision of basic facilities being reinstated – including refreshments and rest areas. These were important given that “there were huge queues at the supermarket, and we were working 12-hour shifts, and it was unpredictable whether you could get food”.

What does this mean?

This study was an eye-opening experience into the challenges faced by junior doctors on working on the front-line at the start of the pandemic. As we enter its second year, serious questions need to be raised about how we support and retain not only junior doctors, but all workers in the healthcare system who likely have similar experiences. At the very least, a greater sense of appreciation and empathy for the work that they are doing is needed.

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Supporting sustainable return to work

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Dr Jo Yarker from the Department of Organizational Psychology shares her research into supporting employees who are returning to work following mental ill-health absence.

Around 15% of the working population suffer from common mental disorders (CMDs) such as depression, anxiety and adjustment disorder (OECD, 2014). For half of these, experience of mental ill-health will lead to a period of long-term sickness absence. In the UK alone, stress, anxiety or depression accounts for 57% of all working days lost to ill-health in 2017-2018 (HSE, 2018).

Sustainable return to work for workers with CMDs is therefore a major societal challenge in terms of scale and costs. A successful initial return to work is no guarantee for sustainable return to work, with research suggesting that approximately 19% of workers subsequently relapse and take further absence or exit the workforce (Koopmans, Bültmann, Roelen, Hoedeman, van der Klink, & Groothoff, 2011).

Relapse has significant consequences for sustaining work, with implications for employment prospects, productivity and wages (OECD, 2014). There is an urgent need to better understand how workers with CMDs can be better supported to return to, and stay in, productive work. Together with my colleague Professor Karina Nielsen from the University of Sheffield, I sought to find out how to support employees returning to work following mental ill-health absence.

Understanding the barriers to sustainable return to work

Our study was the first to our knowledge to follow workers post-return using a qualitative approach. We used the recently developed IGLOO framework in our research: examining the Individual, Group, Leader, Organisational and Overarching (IGLOO) contextual factors (Nielsen, Yarker, Munir & Bültmann, 2018) that influence workers with CMDs’ ability to remain in employment throughout working life.

We conducted interviews with 38 workers who had returned from long-term sick leave due to CMDs, the majority of whom we spoke to at multiple points following their return.  We’d originally planned to follow workers in the first months after return, however, after being contacted by workers who still experienced challenges long after return, we decided to include these too. We also spoke to twenty line managers with experience managing returning workers.

Our findings

Participants reported a number of resources, in and outside of work, that helped them stay and be productive at work.

Resources at work across the five IGLOO levels help employees stay and be productive at work:

  • Individual: Creating structure within their working day to help maintain focus and concentration.
  • Group: Gaining feedback on tasks from colleagues, help with challenging tasks and being treated as before, not as someone with a CMD.
  • Leader: Agreement of communication to colleagues, continued support and access to work adjustments, and signaling (and being) available but not intrusive.
  • Organisational: Flexible working practices and leave policies, accommodating absenteeism policies, work-focused counselling, and demonstrating care through support.
  • Overarching context: This level was not applicable as we only examined UK workplaces.

Resources at home across the five IGLOO levels help employees stay and be productive at work:

  • Individual: Prioritising self-care and the establishment of clear boundaries between work and leisure.
  • Group: Understanding and non-judgmental support from friends and family.
  • Links to services: Consistent point of contact and facilitation of links to external services and treatment.
  • Organisational: Access to work-focused counselling.
  • Overarching context: Those who were financially independent were able to make choices that better suited their needs; the majority reported the positive media attention around mental health enabled them to ask for help.

The main results of our study point to important avenues for future research and practice. Within the workplace, the findings highlight the need to:

  • Consider resources at all IGLOO levels and implement multi-level interventions.
  • Train returned workers in how to structure their day.
  • Train and support line managers, both in having difficult situations but also on how to support workers creating structure and support them manage their workload.
  • Develop more information about appropriate work adjustments that can be implemented and how these can be accessed.
  • Offer flexibility to the returning employee, in relation to work schedule, ad hoc flexibility when depleted to prevent further decline and aid recovery, and flexibility in tasks.
  • Adopt an individual approach as there is no off-shelf-style that works for all.
  • Adopt a long term approach, ensuring that employees are able to access adjustments in the months and years that follow.
  • Conduct further research to enable us to understand the contribution of these features and their synergistic effect on enabling returned employees to remain productive at work.

Outside the workplace, the findings highlight the need to:

  • Conduct further research to better model the impact of support received from friends and family, GP services and those within the voluntary sector.
  • Equip GP services with the skills and knowledge to support return to work.

We developed guidance for employees, colleagues, line managers and HR professionals to support returned workers to thrive at work. This and our full report can be found on the Affinity Health at Work website.

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Managing the ‘always on’ culture – a myth buster and agenda for better practice

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Professor Almuth McDowall (Department of Organizational Psychology) shares her research into worklife balance and calls on employers to take responsibility for their organisation’s culture.

Break, Business, Business People, Businesswoman, Cafe

There is much being written and said about the ‘always on culture’ and how we are increasingly glued to our digital devices – whether at work or at home. Some of my own research has also concerned itself with this topic. My colleague and friend Gail Kinman and I had the results from a practice survey published in 2018 as we wanted to know what organisations are doing about the changing world of work, and the use of information and computer technology.

Well, precious little is the answer. Over half of our respondents said that their organisations don’t have a relevant policy in place and don’t offer any guidance or training. Somewhat worryingly over 40% thought that it should be up to individuals to manage the issue, rather than their line managers or human resources.

Why would people choose to be ‘always on’ outside formal working hours?

Working unpaid during leisure time does not make logical sense! We gift the UK economy billions in unpaid overtime year on year, as research by the Trade Unions Congress has revealed. Our systematic review with colleagues Svenja Schlachter, Ilke Inceoglu and Mark Cropley pointed to a complex picture.

People have different motivations, influenced by issues such as what everyone else does (social norms), what the expectations in the job are, how committed people feel to their job, how they value ‘switching off’ and recovery and whether this is supported in their environment. One key issue which came out of this review is the ‘empowerment enslavement paradox’. Our digital devices are both an enabler, as they afford flexibility, but also ‘digital leash’ as it’s difficult to say ‘enough is enough’ and switch off. As we all know, screen-time can be very seductive.

Is there any evidence that being ‘always on’ is bad for our health?

A recent econometric analysis shows that ICT infrastructure has a positive impact on population health (the authors measured general health outcomes such as infant mortality etc.). Regarding the impact of social media use, there is evidence that high use is linked to poor sleep quality, anxiety depression and low self-esteem. Of course, such studies cannot tell us whether teenagers who are highly anxious to start off with are more likely to be prolific users.

There is far less robust evidence on the exact effects from the world of work – what happens to you if you are on your phone, tablet or laptop near 24/7? We lack good research to tell us what the exact effects are.

What we do know though is that we need recovery and respite, our systems are simply not programmed to be on continuous overdrive. We also know that leisure activities which are quite different from our work tasks are better for our recovery than doing more of the same. I take this to heart. For instance, I find that reading at night doesn’t help me switch off as academics read rather a lot at work, so I take ballet classes online (and am known to teach the odd one myself!), knit and crochet.

What can organisations do?

Employers have a duty of care and should ensure that people are not overworked and can switch off. Worklife balance research tells us that those who live ‘enriched’ lives have better mental and physical health, important for them, and important for their employer. We should actively support employees by ensuring that:

  • A worklife balance policy is in place as a point of reference; then check processes and structures against this policy
  • Employers review job design and ensure that digital tasks (checking and responding to emails, synchronising devices, remote calls and conferences) are actually captured in people’s workload and tasks – these often fall off the radar
  • There is consultation to ask employees what they need – mutually negotiated boundaries and solutions work much better. Think creatively about flexible solutions!
  • Everyone, including senior leaders and managers, role models good behaviours. People need time to switch off, so don’t expect your staff to be available outside normal working hours
  • Staff are offered training and development. Managing in an increasingly digital workspace requires up-to-date management and leadership skills
  • Employees look out for implicit expectations and ‘rumours’. “I check my emails on holiday because this is what is expected of me”. Really? Question such assumptions as they can often take on a life of their own

Finally, if in doubt, ask a psychologist. The Department of Organizational Psychology is keen to work with organisations to establish, consolidate and evaluate best practice.

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