According to research carried out by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), engaging with your drivers could be essential to improve their mental health and wellbeing. The seminar "Mental health and wellbeing: looking after your drivers", held by Rosie Sharp, behavioural sciences researcher at TRL at the Virtual Fleet And Mobility Live event, was giving best practice advice on how to create an environment that promotes mental health and infrastructure to deal with wellbeing issues. According to Sharp, giving feedback to drivers on critical points could help improve their mental health.
As the driving profession is quite a stressful one, drivers for work of any age are likely to suffer with poor mental health for a number of reasons: unpredictable journey times, traffic congestion, tight deadlines, a high workload, and lack of social interaction. This has particularly increased with the pandemic and has even exposed them more to distractions.
But according to Sharp, technology can be a valuable ally, as it could be used across an organisation to enable monitoring and tracking feedback from drivers who may be suffering from mental health and wellbeing issues. Apps and technologies can be used to give support to drivers without making them prone to distraction and when they stop and are safe.
Sharp added that providing advice to drivers on how to keep healthy and how to maintain good wellbeing, is something that could be provided as part of an induction pack or annual or bi-annual training. She said: “Advice doesn't have to be about mental health. We know that other things regarding physical health can affect mental health and wellbeing. It’s really important to give a holistic picture and holistic advice to drivers about what steps they could be taking to manage their wellbeing.”
Photo by Oscar Nilsson on Unsplash
