Companies that don’t do enough to support their workers’ mental health risk seeing their overall productivity dropping by a quarter, new research suggests.
It found that, despite the potential hit to their bottom line, less than half of firms offer proactive support for mental health and many are unsure where to turn for advice.
The findings come five days into Mental Health Awareness Week which ends on Sunday. The survey was commissioned by the Mental Health and Productivity Pilot and conducted by the Enterprise Research Centre.
Responses from individual company bosses suggested that a post-COVID ‘new normal’ with more remote working could exacerbate productivity-sapping mental health problems among employees.
Questioning 1,900 Midlands firms ranging from micro-businesses to large companies, the researchers found that on the eve of the Lockdown, nearly a third of all firms reported seeing sick leave due to mental health problems such as depression and anxiety in the past year.
And significantly, in firms that recorded a hit to their performance as a result, the overall productivity of the company – defined as turnover per employee – was cut on average by 24.5 per cent. It suggests firms that fail to address problems caused by stress could be putting both their workers’ health and their own viability at risk.
According to a recent study by Deloitte, mental health problems could be costing UK firms up to £45bn per year from sickness absence, so-called presenteeism – being at work when ill but working less effectively – and higher staff turnover.
Some firms are taking a proactive approach to improving workplace wellbeing.
Loughborough-based CR Civil Engineering Ltd celebrated its 20th birthday in March by signing up to Mind and Rethink Mental Illness’ Time To Change Pledge, joining nearly 1,500 firms that have committed to ending mental health stigma in the workplace.
We’ve made this a priority across the business because our people are our most vital asset
Business Director Melanie Heath said: “A quarter of our 223-strong workforce are Mental Health First Aid trained, including all directors and senior management and we’ve appointed 22 wellness champions across the business.
“We also hold regular awareness training days for all staff and every employee has access to a 24/7 advice line, an online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) app and counselling sessions. All of this helps to foster a culture of openness and mutual support across the company.
“We’ve made this a priority across the business because our people are our most vital asset and we know that a happy team is a productive team. Ensuring the wellbeing of our people ultimately drives everything else forward.”
The ERC research found in interviews that employers believe a number of key factors contributed to poor mental health, including isolation due to remote working, worries about job security and demands from clients and customers.
Sickness absence for mental health, meanwhile, impacted on firms by placing additional burdens on other workers, affecting staff morale and time spent on management issues, as well as creating extra costs from hiring temporary or permanent replacements – all leading to reduced efficiency across the business.
But only 44 per cent offered proactive support for mental health problems, while only a fifth (22%) had a mental health plan for the business and just over a third (35%) had a health and wellbeing lead on the board.
the matter of mental health at work is even more significant with the meanings of ‘workplaces’ and ‘productivity at work’ being redefined
Nearly two-thirds said they wanted to offer more support. However, many firms tended to look internally or online for ideas to improve mental health, with just 14 per cent consulting specialist mental health charities.
The report recommends that firms should appoint a ‘mental health lead’, particularly in larger companies which tend to experience higher sickness absence for mental health reasons.
See also: Firms need access to emotional support
It also calls for greater partnership working between employers, human resources specialists and mental health charities. The researchers suggest more structured, open and proactive approaches are needed to employee mental health, with issues dealt with in the same way as physical health problems.
The ERC is the UK’s leading independent research institute on growth, productivity and innovation in SMEs. It said the findings, collected in the first quarter of this year just before coronavirus struck, would provide an important baseline for future studies on the effects of the virus on workers’ mental health.
Director Stephen Roper, who also lectures at Warwick Business School, said: “This study shows that the scale of the mental health challenge in workplaces was already huge before the onset of Covid-19. Given the massive dislocation to people’s working lives since then, we can expect that situation to have got worse, especially because some of the risk factors highlighted by our study participants such as remote working have suddenly become far more commonplace.”
Prof Guy Daly, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Coventry University and MHPP programme lead said: “We have been working on this seminal pilot programme since before the pandemic. As the nation and the region work on the recovery phase, the matter of mental health at work is even more significant with the meanings of ‘workplaces’ and ‘productivity at work’ being redefined.”
