UNUM, the Life and Income Protection insurer has just gone to press with research that shows that the level of stress related long term absence reported by their clients has reduced by 10% over the last four years. This seems to fly in the face of many other pieces of research by mental health agencies and service providers which I have questioned elsewhere. I have greater confidence in the UNUM stats because they are based on actual claims made rather than an arbitrary survey of employers who might not keep the best absence records.
This news also justifies my assertion that we are beginning to see positive results from all the time and effort that employers have been putting into health and wellbeing over the last few years. Yes, there’s always room for improvement but it is certainly not the doom and gloom spread by many agencies to further their own cause or the sale of their own services.