Mental Health and Wellbeing Support in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

6. Arrangements and Support for a Return to the Workplace for Staff Post Covid

93. Like many other essential services that continued critical in person work during the Covid Pandemic, the SFRS put in place a range of precautions within its working practices to protect staff from infection from the virus and to minimise the risk of spreading it. Emergency response elements of the Service, including operational fire stations and OCs, continued to operate with strict social distancing rules being applied to sites that remained open. Other staff groups worked from home and minimised contact with colleagues through this way of working.

94. We asked questions during interview about any perceived mental health impacts upon the operational crews who continued to respond to emergency calls and incidents from fire stations and OCs. These groups were unanimous in that they did not report any perceived negative impacts upon their mental health and wellbeing caused by continuing to work. Many reported that coming to a workplace with the opportunity to engage with colleagues had wellbeing benefits for them during the period of national restrictions.

95. Following on from the work from home policy that the SFRS operated during the restrictions, the Service offered support staff the option to take up a hybrid model of working that balances days in the workplace with days when individuals can opt to work from home. A great many support staff continue to work using the hybrid model. We queried the potential for mental health impacts that could be associated with hybrid working during our interviews. Support staff interviewed told us that there were both potentially negative and positive outcomes from working within the hybrid model. The positives included making better use of working time, a reduced commute, cost savings from travel costs and a better work life balance. The negatives included isolation for individuals, the loss of personal contact and peer support from colleagues, and difficulty in maintaining direct managerial contact.

96. We were informed of instances where administration team managers travelled considerable distances and spent a lot of time supporting their team members with a range of issues, including mental health and wellbeing, at their home locations. These managers were making special efforts in support of their team members, but it was a concern that in doing so they in turn were dealing with these issues vicariously and that it was taking a considerable amount of Service time and personal capacity to do so. The benefits and disbenefits of hybrid working are still to be fully established in the post covid period, we do however think that it is worthy of the Service’s consideration in terms of the impact upon individual personnel and their supporting managers.

Recommendation 14: The SFRS should monitor the potential mental health impacts of the hybrid working system. It should consider the impact upon managers who may need to spend additional time in the support of hybrid working team members.