We’ve seen awareness campaigns, mental health initiatives, wellbeing champions, toolbox talks and countless conversations about supporting people who are struggling. While all of these have played an important role in reducing stigma and opening up conversations, many organisations are now asking a different question:
How do we move beyond awareness and create workplaces that actively prevent harm before it occurs?
That question sits at the heart of the latest episode of the Build and Thrive podcast, where host Stuart Mace sits down with Natalie Harvey, Health Specialist at Balfour Beatty, to discuss the company’s journey towards ISO 45003 accreditation and, more importantly, what happened as a result of it.
What emerges throughout the conversation is a powerful message: ISO 45003 is not about achieving a certificate. It is about creating a practical framework that helps organisations consistently manage psychosocial risks and build healthier working environments.
For Natalie and her colleagues, the accreditation was simply the starting point.
Why Balfour Beatty Pursued ISO 45003
As one of the UK’s largest construction companies, Balfour Beatty faces a challenge that many organisations struggle with: consistency.
With hundreds of live projects operating simultaneously across different locations, ensuring that every employee experiences the same approach to wellbeing is no small task.
As Natalie explains: “One of the hardest things about managing wellbeing in a business of our size is consistency.”
The organisation had already made wellbeing a core objective within its health and safety strategy. However, leaders recognised that delivering wellbeing consistently across such a large and diverse business required more than good intentions.
They needed a benchmark. They needed a framework. Most importantly, they needed a way to embed wellbeing into operational processes rather than treating it as a standalone initiative.
ISO 45003 provided that opportunity.
Rather than viewing the standard as a compliance exercise, Balfour Beatty saw it as a chance to evaluate what was already working, identify gaps and establish a common approach that could be adopted across the business.
The goal was simple: wherever someone worked within Balfour Beatty, they should experience the same commitment to psychological health and wellbeing.
Understanding ISO 45003
One of the most valuable parts of the conversation is Natalie’s practical explanation of what ISO 45003 actually is. For many people, terms such as “psychological health” and “psychosocial risk” can feel intimidating or overly technical.
Natalie cuts through the jargon. She describes ISO 45003 as the world’s first global standard providing guidance on how organisations can identify, assess and manage psychosocial risks in the workplace before they cause harm.
Historically, many workplace wellbeing efforts have focused on reacting to problems after they emerge.
ISO 45003 shifts the focus towards prevention. It asks organisations to identify factors that may negatively impact psychological health and put controls in place before issues escalate.
As Stuart points out during the discussion, this isn’t fundamentally different from traditional health and safety management.
It’s still about identifying hazards, assessing risks, implementing controls and reviewing outcomes. The only difference is that the hazards being assessed are psychosocial rather than physical. That distinction proved important when engaging site leaders and supervisors throughout the business.
Overcoming the Language Barrier
One of the biggest challenges Natalie encountered was not implementing new processes.
It was introducing new language. Terms such as “psychological health”, “psychological safety” and “psychosocial risks” were unfamiliar to many people working on projects.
As Natalie explains, when supervisors first heard phrases like “manage psychosocial risks”, the immediate reaction was often confusion.
However, once the concept was broken down, most people quickly realised they were already doing many of the things the standard required. The challenge was helping people understand that psychosocial risks are simply risks associated with the way work is designed, managed and experienced.
In Natalie’s words, if a risk relates to the design of work, the management of work or the social environment around work, it falls into the psychosocial category.
The language may have been new. The principles were not. This became a crucial lesson throughout the implementation process.
Moving Wellbeing Upstream
Perhaps the most significant shift described in the episode is the movement away from reactive wellbeing initiatives and towards proactive risk management.
Natalie makes a distinction that many organisations will recognise. Too often, wellbeing interventions occur after a problem has emerged.
In contrast, Balfour Beatty wanted wellbeing considerations to be present from the earliest stages of project planning. One practical example is the integration of psychosocial risks into project health risk assessments.
Historically, these assessments focused on physical hazards such as vibration, dust, noise, ergonomics and occupational illness.
Today, psychosocial factors are considered alongside them.
For example, when mobilising a remote project where large numbers of workers will be living away from home for extended periods, project teams are encouraged to think proactively about the potential impacts of isolation, family separation, workload and work-life balance.
Instead of waiting for problems to emerge, teams begin discussing preventative measures from day one.
As Natalie explains, the objective is to avoid treating wellbeing as an afterthought.
The Importance of Gap Analysis
One of the strongest practical recommendations Natalie shares concerns the value of conducting a gap analysis before pursuing accreditation.
Balfour Beatty engaged external experts to assess their existing practices against the requirements of ISO 45003. This process delivered far more than an audit result. It provided a roadmap. The organisation gained clarity on what was already working well, where improvements were needed and what actions should be prioritised.
Some recommendations were relatively simple, such as updating terminology within procedures. Others required more substantial organisational changes. Importantly, the process transformed ISO 45003 from an abstract standard into a practical improvement programme.
Natalie is clear in her advice: If organisations have the resources available, start with the gap analysis.
The insights generated can save significant time and effort later in the process.
Creating Practical Change
One of the most encouraging aspects of the discussion is hearing how accreditation led to tangible organisational improvements. Rather than viewing ISO 45003 as the destination, Balfour Beatty used it as a catalyst for broader change.
One major outcome was the development of a new mandatory training programme. Initially, plans existed to create a workplace stress awareness course.
However, the team realised this would focus primarily on responding to problems after they occurred. Instead, they developed a new programme called Managing Psychological Health in the Workplace.
The course is now mandatory for site supervisors and forms part of the organisation’s supervisor development pathway. This represents a subtle but important shift. The focus is no longer solely on recognising distress. It is about understanding how workplace conditions influence psychological health and what leaders can do to create healthier environments.
Building a Consistent Framework
Another major outcome of the project was the development of practical wellbeing structures that can be used across every project. Balfour Beatty’s new health strategy, Protect Today to Shape Tomorrow, incorporates wellbeing as a core pillar. Within that strategy sits a framework known as Create, Manage, Support.
This model provides supervisors and project teams with a straightforward structure for understanding and delivering wellbeing consistently. Alongside this framework, the organisation has introduced what Natalie refers to as the “Wellbeing Three”:
A wellbeing committee. A wellbeing action plan. A wellbeing scorecard.
These tools provide tangible evidence that wellbeing is being discussed, monitored and managed consistently. For Natalie, this represents one of the most valuable outcomes of the entire journey.
Instead of wellbeing being a vague concept, project teams now have practical mechanisms that help turn good intentions into measurable action.
The Small Things Matter
One of the most powerful stories shared during the episode involves a project approaching completion.
As the end of the project neared, workers naturally began worrying about what would happen next.
- Where would they be working?
- Would they need to relocate?
- Would there be another role available?
Recognising these concerns, project leaders arranged for managers from nearby projects to visit and explain future opportunities.
Workers had the chance to ask questions, understand upcoming projects and begin planning their next move. On the surface, this might appear to be a simple workforce planning exercise.
However, Natalie highlights that it was also a psychosocial intervention. By reducing uncertainty and improving communication, the project team addressed a genuine source of anxiety and stress.
The example perfectly illustrates one of the episode’s recurring themes. Psychological health is rarely influenced by one major event. More often, it is shaped by the accumulation of small experiences and interactions.
The Leadership Conversation That Could Change Construction
Towards the end of the discussion, Stuart asks Natalie what she would change about the construction industry if she had a magic wand.
Her answer is remarkably simple. Natalie says she would like every person working in construction to have a meaningful conversation with their leader.
Not a performance review.
Not a compliance discussion.
A genuine conversation about who they are, what matters to them and what support they may need.
“If every single person who works in construction sat down with their site supervisor, their site lead, their foreman, and had a deep and meaningful conversation around themselves, I think it would completely change the way people work in construction.”
It is a powerful reminder that psychological health is ultimately built through relationships. Processes and systems matter. But trust, connection and understanding remain fundamental.
Key Takeaways
- ISO 45003 provides a practical framework for identifying and managing psychosocial risks before harm occurs.
- Consistency was the primary reason Balfour Beatty pursued the standard across hundreds of live projects.
- The biggest implementation challenge was helping people understand new terminology such as “psychosocial risk”.
- Psychosocial risks are now embedded into project health risk assessments from the start of project mobilisation.
- A mandatory psychological health training programme has been introduced for site supervisors.
- The organisation developed practical wellbeing tools, including committees, action plans and scorecards.
- Small interventions that reduce uncertainty and improve communication can have a significant impact on psychological wellbeing.
- Meaningful conversations between leaders and workers remain one of the most powerful tools for improving workplace wellbeing.
- ISO 45003 should be viewed as a catalyst for improvement rather than a compliance exercise.
- Creating workplaces where people feel respected, protected, supported and safe requires long-term commitment and leadership.
Listen or watch the full episode of Build & Thrive to hear the complete conversation with Natalie Harvey and host Stuart Mace.
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Thank you to GKR Scaffolding for sponsoring the Build & Thrive podcast and supporting our mission to improve health and wellbeing across the construction industry.
At Construction Health & Wellbeing, we help organisations create healthier, happier, and more sustainable workplaces.
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Learn more about the people and organisations mentioned in this episode:
Stuart Mace: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartmace/
Construction Health & Wellbeing: https://constructionhealth.co.uk/
GKR Scaffolding (sponsor): https://gkrscaffolding.co.uk/
Natalie Harvey:
Balfour Beatty:
