According to the World Health Organization, being overloaded with stimuli and information from the digital world, fearing for our own safety, living next to a country beset by war, and experiencing a decline in economic stability related to soaring inflation makes us particularly vulnerable to stress and its consequences. Unfortunately, scientific reports suggest that all this affects our physical and mental well-being.
Employers at the time of a mental health crisis
This situation has a direct impact on the condition of the labor market – in terms of productivity, work safety, and cost-effectiveness. A WHO study estimates that common mental health conditions cost the world US$1 trillion a year. The amount includes not only investments in mental health services, but also costs incurred by businesses that employ people struggling with mental health challenges.
It is time to face the fact that this is a global issue. Considering estimates made by the World Health Organization, as many as 970 million people worldwide live with behavioral problems or mental disorders. At the same time, most of them are active in the labor market. Taking these statistics into account, one can safely assume that people overburdened by stress are employed in virtually every enterprise or organization. Needless to say, this has many consequences not only for the employees’ personal lives, but also for the employer’s interests. It has been estimated that a company with 10,000 employees and $70 million in profits will lose as much as $17.2 million due to problems caused by employee depression, including as much as $10 million due to absenteeism and reduced productivity related to mental health problems. [1]
The data presented above shows the importance of employers’ involvement in activities that support mental health in the workplace, especially as investing in the mental well-being of the workforce means furthering employers’ business-related interests. In this context, employer-sponsored initiatives designed to prevent mental health problems among employees can be regarded as a win-win solution. Thanks to such activities, employees get resources they might never have access to if not for the employer’s involvement. As a result, they can improve the quality of their lives, and the company can pursue its business goals more effectively.
Consequences of a lack of employee support
From the perspective of the labor market situation and the global mental health crisis, it is an obvious conclusion that businesses should invest in the mental well-being of the people they employ. But what happens if we as employers ignore the problem? Which areas of work are affected by overwhelming stress and work overload? What exactly can happen if we fail to address these issues? Here are a few potential consequences:
- Reduced productivity
If a person’s mental problems are not properly taken care of, the person finds it difficult to be productive and engage in their everyday job duties. This condition can slow them down and make them think and act chaotically. This, in turn, will have a major impact on their performance and the quality of their work.
- Decreased workplace safety
Being overwhelmed by stress and caught up in problems related to private life or health issues affects cognitive processes in the brain. The cognitive processes include thinking, memorizing, linking facts, reacting promptly, or focusing attention. This condition can decrease attentiveness to workplace hazards and contribute to an increase in the number of on-the-job accidents.
- Increased employee turnover
It is difficult to work in a high-pressure environment. Workplaces where no one makes an effort to reduce stimuli that generate stress often have a high employee turnover. Considering that the recruitment and induction processes usually involve considerable expenditure on the part of the employer, addressing the problem is likely to generate cost reductions.
- More missed work time
Sick leaves associated with the treatment of mental health conditions can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. Effective against flu, a few days in bed won’t be enough to treat depression. A prolonged absence of a sick employee has a multitude of costly consequences, including overtime work for other team members, the need to hire and train substitute staff, not to mention pushed-back deadlines for project completion. In view of the fact that from the 34th day of the sick leave onwards, the employee’s sick pay is fully covered by the employer, such an absence can also be highly unfavorable from an economic point of view.
How can you help your employees?
Despite understanding how important it is in today’s world for employers to take measures to reduce stress and support employees struggling with a mental crisis, making systemic changes to this effect in organizational culture often proves difficult.
The reasons for this situation might include:
- the belief that one should not make any references to the mental health of employees, because it is a private affair of the people concerned – this may lead to certain awkwardness surrounding this topic, even if it is only mentioned in a conversation.
- the awareness among the staff employed in HR roles that they are often not adequately prepared or trained to deal with issues related to mental health, which are considered the subject of science – psychology or psychiatry – rather than business.
HR employees are not, nor ever have been, required to be psychologists. And yet, in the world that we live in, it is becoming increasingly necessary to have skills typically associated with psychology, which can be intimidating, or can cause uncertainty when taking steps to try and support employees in looking after their mental health.
This problem can be addressed by reaching out for external assistance to people who have the appropriate competences, as well as by using a wide range of tools developed by professionals.
The choice in this area includes:
- meetings with mental health professionals, stress reduction workshops, or one-on-one consultations with a psychologist, which you can make accessible for employees by reimbursing the costs they incur.
- tools supporting self-awareness, designed to prevent mental health crises or make them easier to overcome through conscious effort, as well as to educate – about the forms of help that can be useful when experiencing a prolonged period of low mood. This is exactly the purpose of the psychoeducational app Focusly which can be used not only to deal with an ongoing crisis, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, to build one’s natural mental resilience and prevent deterioration of mental health.
- educating employees by organizing expert meetings on mental health, and initiating conversations about the importance of topics related to mental and physical well-being. All this in order to undermine the belief that mental health issues are something to be ashamed of, which still lingers in many social circles.
- creating widespread awareness of the importance of both quality working time and quality leisure time for the performance of professional tasks. Educating about the role of rest and its influence on people’s well-being, and promoting diversity of leisure-time activities by providing such benefits as e.g. MultiSport cards or apps for listening to relaxing music, e.g. GO ON.
Not only worth doing, but essential
As the global mental health crisis deepens, strategies related to mental health protection should become an integral part of corporate social responsibility. Goals in this area can be achieved in a number of ways. The choice is as large as the number of disturbing reports about the prevalence of diagnosed depression, mental disorders, or growing attempted suicide rates. For this reason, the involvement of business in the promotion of mental health has long ceased to be just a matter of fashion, and should be regarded as an ethical and economic obligation of every organization.
Bibliography:
- Chisholm D, Sweeny K, Sheehan P, Rasmussen B, Smit F, Cuijpers P, Saxena S. Scaling-up treatment of depression and anxiety: a global return on investment analysis. Lancet Psychiatry. 2016 May;3(5):415-24. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(16)30024-4. Epub 2016 Apr 12. PMID: 27083119.
- Stewart WF, Ricci JA, Chee E, Hahn SR, Morganstein D. Cost of lost productive work time among US workers with depression. JAMA 2003;289(23):3135-3144.
- Lerner D, Lyson M, Sandberg E, et al: The High Cost of Mental Disorders: Facts for Employers. Rutherford, CA, One Mind Initiative, 2017.
- Ronald C. Kessler, PhD, Hagop S. Akiskal, MD, Minnie Ames, PhD, Howard Birnbaum, PhD, Paul Greenberg, MA, Robert M.A. Hirschfeld, MD, Robert Jin, M.S., Kathleen R. Merikangas, PhD, and Philip S. Wang, MD, DrPH, The prevalence and effects of mood disorders on work performance in a nationally representative sample of US workers, Am J Psychiatry. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2007 Jul 18.
