Workers’ perceptions of OH

Summary:

Employee engagement with occupational health services can be marred by perceptions that OH referral is a tick-box process or a tool to ratify HR decisions. Should we be worried?

‘I was referred to occupational health, and we all know what that means.’ I sit part time as a non-legal member of the employment tribunal, and this observation was given in oral evidence by a claimant who had lost his job after a lengthy sickness absence. Is this what employees think of OH? That it is there just to rubber-stamp the decisions of management? OH professionals probably have a different view, but a TUC survey suggests that many workers would indeed …

 

Dr John Ballard is editor of Occupational Health [at Work]

Author: Ballard J

Tags health and safety

Occupational Health at Work February/March 2026 (vol. 22/5) pp03

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