Next March the industry will come together again for the second Respect our Workforce week, taking place March 10-14th 2025, with the annual Stamp It Out Summit taking place in Manchester on March 11th.
The theme for the week will be ‘My Mind Matters’ in response to the growing concern around the effect verbal and physical abuse is having on roadworkers’ mental health.
In 2023 a total of 2307 reported being either verbally or physically abused whilst at work out on the public highway.
Incidents included being threatened with a gun, a knife and a machete attack.
The negative impact of this on the mental health of the individuals subjected to the abuse is something which is, inevitably, is also of concern to employers.
According to recent research by Stamp It Out, 35% of roadworkers experience abuse on a daily basis and over 58% experiencing abuse weekly.
Despite the significant progress of the campaign, only 27.3% of workers report abuse, with nearly 40% saying that abuse has a negative impact on their mental health.
As a result, 24.7% of workers said they were actively looking for another role and 63.4% said they would take another role on lower pay if it meant not being abused any more.
As well as another communications campaign, Respect Our Workforce Week will also see the National Highways ‘Chatty Van’ visit four locations to once again give the chance for the highways industry to engage with the public about abuse.
The campaign will be again calling on the whole supply chain to help raise awareness of the challenges facing our workforce as well as the solutions being providing to solve them.
The week will also focus on outputs from some of the other research about to be undertaken by the campaign-looking at how the risk posed to highway workers from incursions into their worksites is minimised.
The last 12 months has seen over 270 companies sign the Stamp It Out commitment, including several local authorities, many of who have or are set to roll the campaign out across their regions as well as across departments to ensure all public facing workers can be afforded the same protection as highways workers.
Speaking about the launch of the second Respect of Workforce week, programme leader and founder of Stamp It Out, Kevin Robinson said:“Having seen that the success of this year’s Respect Our Workforce Week, it made perfect sense to take in to another level in 2025. This year, our communications campaign alone engaged with over 10 million people across the UK via national, local and regional television, radio and in the written press. It is still going, with another BBC TV report planned and recent coverage in the Daily Mail. So, why wouldn’t 2025 be even better, going even further towards on our aim of eradicating roadworker abuse and improving the mental health of roadworkers. Their minds matter.”
