Skanska UK - NSPA

Skanska, one of the UK’s leading contractors, is an inclusive and responsible business that is helping to build for a better society. Known for major projects, such as the Gherkin and Crossrail, we are building, upgrading and maintaining the country’s infrastructure. Drawing on our Scandinavian heritage, we are green, innovative and progressive. We bring together people and technology, as part of our quest to make construction a safer and more collaborative industry.

Our work in suicide prevention

Skanska UK is committed to raising mental health awareness across the business and among contractors through a comprehensive mental health and wellbeing strategy built around four key strands: leadership, building capability, employee voice, and resource availability. In terms of leadership, Skanska signed the ‘Time to Change’ commitment in 2016, with the CEO making mental health a strategic priority. The company collaborates with industry groups such as HiCLG and Mates in Mind to improve mental health literacy and has developed a Post Incident Plan to address the immediate and long-term impacts of workplace suicides. Skanska also supports its supply chain with workshops and free health resources to promote mental wellbeing.

To build capability, Skanska partnered with MIND to deliver suicide awareness workshops for managers and HR, trained over 350 employees in mental health awareness, and introduced a work impact questionnaire to identify stress among individuals and teams. Employee voice is promoted through initiatives like mental health ‘stand ups,’ where work pauses for facilitated conversations, and ‘Time to Talk’ events held twice a year to encourage open discussions about mental health. Skanska also provides resources such as guidance on talking about suicide, workshops like “Let’s Talk About Suicide – How a Business Recovers,” and 24/7 access to an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP).

Our current priorities

We are hosting a workshop and webinar for senior and line managers, as well as HR teams, to address how businesses can recover after a suicide. This session, led by psychologist Pam Steele, will provide guidance on workplace practices that support recovery and highlight managerial behaviours to avoid following such tragic events.

To further support our teams, we are rolling out suicide awareness training for managers, mental health ambassadors, and HR. This training will help participants understand suicidality and the spectrum of suicidal risk, recognise common risk factors, learn how to assess the seriousness of a situation, and take appropriate steps when someone is at risk. It will also equip them to identify sources of help for both the individual at risk and themselves when dealing with such situations.

We are also launching a 45-minute mental health ‘stand up’ event across Skanska UK to encourage conversations about mental health. Led by leadership teams, this interactive session will provide tools to help employees feel confident in discussing mental health. Additionally, we will continue to upskill managers through 3.5-hour Mental Health Lite training delivered by MHFA England.

Our current challenges

Mental health is a new subject to the construction industry which has become an increasing area of attention due to the latest research that tells us the construction is a vulnerable sector. The typical workforce are male, peripatetic and have an average age of 43 years – all these factors will influence the reach and success of our programme.

Additionally, communication routes are limited to tool box talks at operative level which is reliant on the subject being of interest to the presenter (typically a supervisor) and confident to talk about the subject.

We are probably more enabled than many organisations with not only the infrastructure but heath expertise – we believe that we can support smaller organisations to build their mental health literacy and will do this through our facilitated workshops with the supply chain.